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List Price: $14.99 | | Label: Miramax
Salesrank: 3243
Released: November 9, 2004 |
| Our Price: $4.42 |
| Used Price: $3.22 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Academy Award(R) winner Renée Zellweger (Best Supporting Actress, COLD MOUNTAIN, 2003; CHICAGO) and Hugh Grant (LOVE ACTUALLY, TWO WEEKS NOTICE) star in a delightful comedy about the ups and downs of modern romance. Bridget (Zellweger), a busy career woman, decides to turn over a new page in her life by channeling her thoughts, opinions and insecurities into a journal that becomes a hilarious chronicle of her adventures. Soon she becomes the center of attention between a guy who's too good to be true (Grant) and another who's so wrong for her, he could be just right (Colin Firth -- LOVE ACTUALLY)! Based on the best-selling book, BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY is another acclaimed crowd-pleaser from the hit makers of FOUR WEDDING AND A FUNERAL and NOTTING HILL.
Description of Bridget Jones's Diary (Collector's Edition):
Featuring a blowzy, winningly inept size-12 heroine, Bridget Jones's Diary is a fetching adaptation of Helen Fielding's runaway bestseller, grittier than Ally McBeal but sweeter than Sex and the City. The normally sylphlike Renée Zellweger (Nurse Betty, Me, Myself and Irene) wolfed pasta to gain poundage to play "singleton" Bridget, a London-based publicist who divides her free time between binge eating in front of the TV, downing Chardonnay with her friends, and updating the diary in which she records her negligible weight fluctuations and romantic misadventures of the year. Things start off badly at Christmas when her mother tries to set her up with seemingly standoffish lawyer Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), whom Bridget accidentally overhears dissing her. Instead she embarks on a disastrous liaison with her raffish boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant, infinitely more likeable when he's playing a baddie instead of his patented tongue-tied fops). Eventually, Bridget comes to wonder if she's let her pride prejudice her against the surprisingly attractive Mr. Darcy.
If the plot sounds familiar, that's because Fielding's novel was itself a retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, whose romantic male lead is also named Mr. Darcy. An extra ironic poke in the ribs is added by the casting of Firth, who played Austen's haughty hero in the acclaimed BBC adaptation of Austen's novel. First-time director Sharon Maguire directs with confident comic zest, while Zellweger twinkles charmingly, fearlessly baring her cellulite and pulling off a spot-on English accent. Like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill (both of which were written by this film's coscreenwriter, Richard Curtis), Bridget Jones's stock-in-trade is a very English self-deprecating sense of humor, a mild suspicion of Americans (especially if they're thin and successful), and a subtly expressed analysis of thirtysomething fears about growing up and becoming a "smug married." The whole is, as Bridget would say, v. good. --Leslie Felperin
Bridget Jones's Diary (Collector's Edition) Reviews:
Predictable but painless 
2009-11-26 - I actually watched the sequel several years ago and disliked it. I heard, though that this, the original, was quite good so I watched it. It was better than the sequel but nothing to brag about. The cast is first-rate but the plot is so silly and predictable that it doesn't give them much to work with. Renee Zelwegger is pretty good as the pleasingly plumped-up Bridget who is in her 30's and without a man in her life. She falls for the scoundrel Hugh Grant, who is always quite convincing as the charming cad and ignores the decent, square-jawed but boring Colin Firth. We know the ending from the beginning so there's nothing to do but sit back and enjoy the show, if you enjoy this kind of thing.
Zellwegger is surely a game actress and gives every role her all, if it's the floozy dancer in Chicago (her best role, in my opinion) or the poor Southerner in Lone Mountain that won her an Oscar. She has an innate likability, too, that makes watching her for two hours bearable, even in this silly story. I like Colin Firth a lot and regret that there was not more of his presence here. The parents were shown to be awfully stupid and hardly believable.
Silly, but there are a lot of worse films around.
Great movie!! 
2009-11-12 - This movie is incredibly funny. I've watched it several times and every time I find a new line that I didn't catch before that cracks me up. Love the performances also. Great actors, great story-line. Great for collectors.
Bridget Jones's Diary... Strange what Hollywood Considers Fat or Funny 
2009-10-22 - Bridget Jones's Diary: 4 out of 10: There have been a great number of woman's films that have successfully crossed over to the mainstream. Sleepless in Seattle, Jerry Maguire and Aliens are three classic examples of "chick flicks" that men can watch with their ladies, enjoy the film, and still get credit for being a sensitive guy that likes what she likes.
Bridget Jones's Diary tries to come across as a frothy crossover comedy. You know one of those estrogen flicks that Hugh Grant now does since Tom Hanks was shipped off to make "important films". Diary however doesn't successfully crossover. It's a real chick flick through and through.
The thirty something equivalent of Sixteen Candles. In fact it seems to have basically the same plot and characters as that John Hughes eighties perennial. Instead of our sixteen-year-old ugly duckling we have a thirty two year old overweight alcoholic with virtually no social skills. And instead of one impossible cute and rich suitor we now have two impossible rich and handsome suitors that fight over our protagonist.
Now I have always felt Renee Zellweger was easy on the eyes and talented to boot. As for the extra weight she put on,(An act that the media with a straight face called "brave") well let's just say she wears it well. Her character however is such a horrible deceptive person that one really wonders why either man would want her for anything more than a quick shag.
Like those other lovable raging alcoholics of the silver screen say Arthur or The McKenzie Brothers two hours of screen time is one thing but day-to-day living is another. One really wonders how long either man would really stick around with Miss Jones? (A: Till he got tired of shagging her.)
One last question. What's is with the music? It's Raining Men? Ain't No Mountain High Enough? Does the CIA use this soundtrack on prisoners at Abu Ghraib? Doesn't the Geneva Convention mean anything?
A sad inheritence for younger women :-( 
2009-09-25 - This movie is attempting to cloak a backlash ideology in a type of imitation-feminism. Bridget Jones is the remake of Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice without the intellectual capacity, class, and dignity. In the original story Elizabeth Bennett is not perfect; this idea of imperfection becomes a repeated theme in the Jones movie with one big difference--Jones lacks virtues. Bennett's imperfections are also her virtues; she was blunt but by being forthcoming she was wise. In this new make Bridget is self-defacing. She views herself as inadequate and the only way that she can fix her flaws is by gaining the affections of a male. The heroine does not like herself.
Over and over again the heroine puts herself down while repeatedly making the same mistakes. She is a poor public speaker, but rather than avoid public speaking or get coaching she continually makes a fool of herself and this is supposed to be what is lovable about her. I think that we can all identify with not doing things well, but Jones repeatedly bashes herself in the movie. She calls herself a spinster and has several "Bridget has done it again" moments. I think that there is a good argument that woman are being pressured to be so successful that any woman actually attempting to work and be glamorous and intelligent and do everything correctly will eventual have doubts about her abilities, but this film makes fun of heroine. We aren't to question whether society has an expectation for women now that they cannot meet, we are simply supposed to laugh at this protagonist for failing all the time. A single woman struggling is now hilarious?
Another problem is that at 30 her life does not resemble the typical 30 year old's. She has no children. Utterly no dependents. Virtually no responsibility yet she cannot perform her job. How many female incompetent bachlorettes do you know? We are supposed to identify with her because she wears baggy underwear when she wants to be sexy. Bridget tries to be a playgirl but doesn't know how. She is too stupid. The underlying message that I get is that no woman is really able to enjoy casual sex; she must mess it up, not enjoy it, or be mocked for her attempts. Another issue is that Bridget wants a relationship, but is messing around with what in layman's terms we call an absolute jerk. She is so despite for a man that she accepts Grant even though his behavior is disrespectful to her in the extreme. He sexually harasses her at work and she does not leave or feel outraged. I find that believable if she was younger, but at 30 most women have a more experience with men and understand the workings or a relationship were as a young woman may not.
The problem with Darcy is that he is not very nice to her. He insults her and treats her in a condescending manner. She doesn't fight back. She makes a fool of herself and he feels bad for her. That is not the novel that I read. The point of Pride and Prejudice is that Mr. Darcy is prejudice and recognizes that he is reproducing social class discrimination when Elizabeth Bennett rejects him in a blunt, passionate, and outstanding way. She stands up for herself beautifully when she exclaims that she will never marry him [because he is so disrespectful]. There are no scenes like this in this movie. Darcy looks down on her much like a Ph.D scholar degrades a fast food worker, and Bridget in the end runs through the streets in her underwear so despite that he not leave her. After he treats her poorly, the best way that she can express herself in written word is to pen that she hates him in her diary. She doesn't state way she hates him or why his disdainful attitude towards her hurts her.
All problems stated, the worst is that Bridget isn't in a relationship because she met someone that she has an affinity. She is in a relationship because she is afraid to be single. She sings all by myself and eats too much ice cream because being alone is embarrassing. It is her social status and not her personal loneliness that is the root of the problem. Ultimately, this movie teaches woman that above all else they must get a man if they are going to be acceptable members of society and that you should do anything--run in your underwear in the snow if you must, nothing is too shameful, to keep him!
Bridget Jones's Diary
2009-08-29 - Item was just as described. One of my favorite movies and I was very satisfied with its great condition. Fast shipping. Overall great transaction. Thank you.
