Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy (15)

Bridget Jones is back for one last hoorah in this vulnerable, honest and very funny final chapter.

Spoiler. Mark Darcy is dead. In fact, he’s been dead for four years. Bridget is taking it about as well as can be expected. Now older and (slightly) wiser, she’s a singleton once more and finds herself at a crossroads. Though she’s grown, learned from her mistakes, and evolved, she’s still ultimately the same Bridget at heart. After jumping back into the dating pool, she finds herself caught between a younger man and her son's science teacher. Surrounded by her faithful friends (Shirley Henderson, Sally Phillips, and James Callis), her withering gynecologist (Emma Thompson), and ageing playboy Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), Bridget weighs up whether to let herself fall in love all over again.

‘Fourquels’ are usually where film franchises start to flirt with rock bottom. But not this time. Renée Zellweger, who for 24 years has given us possibly the greatest romantic-comedy heroine of the millennium, is Mad About the Boy’s life-force. The nature of her performance and obvious admiration for the role brings everything together here, re-capturing the magic, humour, and heartbreak of the original and bowing out with its best sequel.