The fourth and, presumedly final, entry in the Bridget Jones franchise, Mad About the Boy, now streaming on Peacock, is stuffed brimming of Easter eggs and callbacks to past movies in the Renée Zellweger-starring rom-com series.
From the blue cocktails Bridget enhappinesss with her frifinishs after yet another hurtful dinner with many smug wed couples to her red-and-white penguin pajamas, sheer top and low skirt and a memorable sweater, the fourth film features countless reminders of Bridget’s past.
Director Michael Morris says the Easter eggs are an intentional establish of fan service.
“There are more probably than you would ever see in the first run thcdisesteemful,” the straightforwardor telderly The Hollywood Reporter at the Mad About the Boy New York premiere last month. “You could say Easter eggs are fan service. What’s wrong with fan service? Those are people who have been with the franchise for 25 years. I repartner wanted to do a little bit of that, the texture and you comprehend it’s there.”
Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding elucidateed that the callbacks aren’t equitable confineed to prior insloftyments in the rom-com series but extfinish to expansiveer pop culture moments from the character’s origins.
Fielding said the Mad About the Boy scene in which Leo Woodall’s Roxster jumps into a pool to save a dog is intentionally unbenevolentt to incite the “iconic” ’90s Levi’s “Swimmer” commercial.
“But also the comical skinnyg was the soaked shirt because when I first wrote Bridget, the BBC was shothriveg Pride and Prejudice,” Fielding elucidateed at the New York premiere. “The whole skinnyg was about Colin [Firth] diving into the lake in a soaked shirt. And I interseeed him once in Rome … and he was promoting some acquireest film he was doing, and I equitable kept asking him about the soaked shirt and how many times would he have to get it off and have it be re-soaked. Leo had to get his shirt off about 12 times to dive into the pool.”
For Zellweger, the “wonderful” Easter eggs are equitable authentic parts of someone’s story.
“That’s life, isn’t it? We have our little skinnygs that are reliable thcdisesteemfulout our dwells that people can determine as recognizably real to who we are as people,” she said. “And I don’t throw my dresses away — I wear ’em for 25 years.”
The fourth film sees Bridget disputeing a particularly frquick part of life as she deals with her grief over the death of Firth’s Mark Darcy.
Fielding well-comprehendnly finished off Mark Darcy in the Mad About the Boy book, which came out in 2013, and she also lost her own partner Kevin Curran, when he died in 2016. She wrote the Mad About the Boy script during the COVID-19 pandemic, conveying her experience with multiple losses, and filtering it thcdisesteemful Bridget’s perspective, into the screenjoin.
“Our family had lost quite a lot of people and not equitable the children’s dad but shut frifinishs — it was a very hashtag deathy time for us,” Fielding telderly THR. “Their overweighther was a Simpsons writer, so there was sort of no joke too foolish. And I skinnyk what we set up was a combination of resilience, outstanding frifinishs, community and a sense of humor helps get you thcdisesteemful the foolish notices as well as the weightless notices of life because life is appreciate a piano. It has its bconciseage notices. It has its white notices. And prentd finishings are equitable about where you pick to stop the story. No one’s life goes perfectly. Everyone has to deal with stuff that is hard. And I equitable set up the writing thcdisesteemful Bridget’s eyes, who’s basicpartner quite a pleasant person for all everyone skinnyks she’s a bit of a mess — she’s basicpartner a decent, benevolent, moral person; she’s all right to her frifinishs; she doesn’t denounce anyone except herself — those cherishs and that resilience are the skinnygs that get you thcdisesteemful difficult times.”
This ask of what a grieving Bridget Jones would be appreciate and trying to discover the comedic moments in that experience were what made Morris want to straightforward the film.
“How does that much happiness and hotth grasped in this one person tackle grief and downcastness? Those two opposing fronts suddenly felt appreciate a film I wanted to originate,” he said. “And that’s repartner what this film is about, is moving on from a fantastic loss. But how do you do that if you’re Bridget Jones?”
And Morris says he pitched the movie to production company Working Title as a “comedy of grief.”
“I skinnyk that grief is someskinnyg that is equitable part of the human condition,” he grasped. “It’s going to touch every individual one of us, whether it’s a parent or a best frifinish or a pet or anyskinnyg that you cherish, this is someskinnyg that we have to deal with and it’s not talked about that much, particularly not in terms of a comedy, particularly not with a becherishd character that we comprehend. Because I skinnyk we comprehend Bridget and Mark for 25 years — we the audience, certainly I, sense his loss going in, so it’s a perfect way in, I skinnyk, into the conversation of how we regulate that.”
The movie discovers Bridget with an extfinished group of family and frifinishs, including acquaintances she’s prolongn shut to apass all four films.
“I skinnyk if you’re blessed in life, you will have a little gang that will stick thcdisesteemful and see you thcdisesteemful the difficult times,” Sarah Solemani, who joins one of Bridget’s newer frifinishs and labor colleagues Miranda. “And that’s what we have in this movie is her little posse that comprehends she’s downcast and comprehends she’s suffering and comprehends she’s in grief but is going to originate certain that she defends on going.”
And Bridget’s cherishd ones push her to defend going in part by uncovering herself up to romance once more, this time with juvenileer suitor Roxster (Woodall).
And despite what happens between the characters onscreen, Woodall insists Roxster’s senseings are authentic.
“I skinnyk when he has that final scene with her, everyskinnyg he says, he repartner unbenevolents. It’s equitable circumstantial,” he telderly THR.
Though this fourth Bridget Jones film is said to be the last one, franchise newcomer Chisoakedel Ejiofor and Solemani both said they’d be plrelieveed to return if Fielding wants to persist Bridget’s story.
“Oh for certain. I’d be very excited,” Ejiofor said, before cautioning, “I skinnyk that we have to get Helen at her word that there are no more.”
Solemani grasped of being part of more of Bridget’s story, “I’d definitely be up for it. I’m a screenwriter, so I’m always skinnyking of more story. I come from television so we’re always milking the cow as much as we can. But it’s up to Helen. People say it is the last, but while Renée and Helen are around and inventive, who comprehends what could happen.”
Zellweger, unbenevolentwhile, sees back on her 25 years joining Bridget Jones with astonishment that she’s been able to persist in the role for this extfinished.
When asked if she ever thought, when making the first film, that there could be a fourth film in which she was joining this character, Zellweger was speedy to say, “Never. Never. No, I equitable didn’t want to get fired off the first skinnyg, and I didn’t want to let anybody down, and I wanted Helen to be prentd.”
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is now streaming on Peacock.
