The fourth BJ installment is chock-full of ‘life lessons’, which could get a bit preachy in the wrong hands if one didn’t enjoy the characters so much.  But the world has been cheering the ups and sympathizing with the downs of Ms. Jones for 24 years and Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy melds completely into the previous three films.

Hugh Grant is back in all his maddingly caddish glory as Bridget’s ex-lover, Daniel Cleaver.  Honestly, is there anyone who can pull off scoundrel as well as Grant?  One is certain that Grant must certainly have a say in everything his character does.  His new love, the much younger Geminita (Elena Rivers) is a poet/model and though he is attracted to her, he’s not as challenged by her as he is by his “Dirty Dirty Bitch” Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger).  In fact, Daniel never misses an opportunity to hit on Bridget, even as he is heading out the door of her flat to meet up with Geminita.  True to form, Bridget continues to put him in his place and send him on his way, with a warm hug and a peck on the cheek.

Four years ago, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), the love of Bridget’s life, lost his own life when he stepped on a landmine in Sudan, where he had been doing humanitarian work, negotiating the release of some aid workers who had been taken hostage.  Yes, it’s certainly hard to find a man who has any chance of living up to that level of goodness.  And BJ hasn’t even tried to search.  Since Mark’s death, BJ’s life has revolved solely around Billy and Mabel, their kids.  She’s given up her job, and she almost never socializes. She spends days in her pajamas, even showing up at her children’s school, still clad in her pajama top.  The only thing she has not given up is her internal monologue, which continues to serve as narrator of MATB.  

Understandably, she’s become a bit morose but back to being her lovely disorganized self. She’s journaling.  And she certainly, most definitely, positively has no use for a man in her life.  Which, as everyone knows, is exactly when, in a movie, fate comes a knockin’.  And in BJ’s case, it knocks twice.  Once in the form of Roxter (Leo Woodall), a deliciously handsome and much younger park ranger who comes to her rescue. And then as Mr. Wallaker (Chiwetel Eijofor), her son’s uptight, whistle-blowing science teacher.  But let’s not reveal all.

It’s the quiet moments in MATB that ring especially true.  The poignancy of imagining the ones you have loved and lost are still with you.  BJ still ‘sees’ Mark.  Not as a ghost, but in glimpses of memories that feel so real to her. In her home, singing a song to young Billy in the evening.  In the street, while walking to his family’s home for a rare dinner get-together.  You can feel the ache in her, the loss.  Luckily for MATB, the novelist who created the original BJ, Helen Fielding, is on hand as Executive Producer and is credited along with Zellweger in the film.  So you know the characters we all love will remain true.

So, at the aforementioned dinner, BJ gets all sorts of life advice – she must have sex, must avoid sex, must meet a man, you don’t need a man, the kids come first, you come first, you’re not getting any younger, you look great for your age, etc. etc. etc.  All well-meaning, though a bit insulting.  And so, our BJ escapes out the door.

Accompanying her daughter to a doctor’s appointment, said physician, being absolutely incomparable Emma Thompson, she receives permission to do what she’s been craving – go back to work.  Return to being a TV program producer.  The arena where BJ has always excelled and been overly competent. Where she feels powerful and finds her purpose.  Her blood starts flowing again.  She becomes excited about life. Her friend signs her up for Tinder and convinces BJ that it’s time to get back out there.

And, of course, in movieland, that’s when she meets her match. No, not on the dating site, but while hanging off a tree, trying to rescue her stranded children.

A gallant, and quite hot, park ranger comes to her rescue, clambering quickly up the tree like a panther, assisting her children to the ground and quickly capturing her, well, not her heart but at least something.  She’s interested.  He’s definitely younger.  But the age difference doesn’t seem to bother him. Roxter begins his ardent pursuit.  Mr. Wallaker somehow turns up there, too, but fades into the distance.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t personally see any issue with an older woman/slightly younger man scenario.  Apparently, it’s become quite the thing lately in Hollywood.  We’ve recently seen this exact same scenario in The Idea Of You, with Anne Hathaway and May/December with Natalie Portman.  Of course, this plotline goes as far and famously back as The Graduate.  But it’s still seen as somewhat ‘naughty’, and that’s pretty sad.  Is Grant’s Daniel seen as ‘naughty’?  No, he’s just ‘doing what men of a certain age’ do.  But when a woman takes a younger lover, she’s not seen in the same light.  Using this as a plotpoint feels a little cheap.  Maybe, hopefully, the time will come when highlighting a couple breaking this particular ‘societal norm’ will be passe. However, for the development of this story, BJ remains exceptionally true to her character.  

What viewers will most identify with in MATB is the birth and growth of a relationship in the age of texting.  The magical ‘ding’ that brings the thrill that the someone you are thinking of is thinking of you right back.  The glow.  The smile. You can be in the checkout line.  In the office.  Walking along the street.  It’s infatuating. It takes over your life, as BJ’s character says, “with no necessity for actually meeting, no arrangements or sex or any real life at all.” Your relationship is literally in the palm of your hand.  Of course, BJ and Roxy do eventually begin an in-person affair, and it goes along quite swimmingly. Until….