Director: Michael Morris

Stars: Renée Zellweger, Leo Woodall, Hugh Grant, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Colin Firth, Sarah Solemani, Mila Jankovic, Casper Knopf

The sequels to 2001’s frothy and fun ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’, adapted from Helen Fielding’s columns/novel, failed to capture the sparkle of the original. The follow up, 2004’s ‘Bridget Jones: The End of Reason’ shuffled the characters around aimlessly with the-unlucky-in love Londoner frequently coming on more like an annoying buffoon than the have-a-go heroine of the first. The third picture, ‘Bridget Jones’s Baby’, with its ‘edgy’ jokes about genocide and lazy gags about hard-to-pronounce foreign names, felt entitled and solipsistic.

The fourth, and presumably final instalment, gets back on track with its surprisingly heartfelt take on middle-age and the need to move on. Which may have something to do with Abi Morgan’s addition to the scriptwriting team.

Bridget (Zellweger) is now a widow, her human rights lawyer husband Darcy (Firth) having been killed doing humanitarian work abroad. She lives with her two children, Billy (Knopf) and Mabel (Jankovic) in their spacious but cluttered Hampstead house. One of the most appealing aspects of the film is how rewarding and fun motherhood is shown to be for Bridget, evidenced early on in a family breakfast scene set to Bowie’s ‘Modern Love’.

Bridget is persuaded by her anarchic presenter pal Miranda (Solemani) to return to TV producing. Miranda also pressgangs Jones into going back into dating. Although she has no luck on the apps, Bridget meets handsome young park warden and bio-scientist Roxster (The Black Lotus’s Woodall) after she gets stuck up a tree. A relationship follows. Also in Jones’s orbit is the straight laced teacher Mr Wallaker (Ejiofor), who is a bit closer to Bridget age-wise.

Pretty much all of Bridget’s family and friends return here, in a picture film that feels valedictory without being overly self-referential. Hugh Grant brings real pathos as roué Daniel Cleaver as his character considers his mortality, while Colin Firth’s reappearance as a Mr Darcy, in spectral form, is well-handled and disarmingly affecting. Of the new cast Woodall is poorly served with the thinly realised Roxster. The sketchy characterisation may be intended as a riposte to underwritten female eye candy, but does not make for involving drama, and drags the film down, leaving the audience pondering whether his character could have been removed altogether. Nevertheless, this is a rare feelgood film that eschews manipulation and ties a neat bow on the series.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is out now.

David Willoughby Follow David on Bluesky @davidwilloughby.bsky.social