Bridget Jones's Diary 2: The Edge of Reason

I'm late, but I recently watched Bridget Jones's Diary 2: The Edge of Reason. It was funny enough, but I thought the crux of it was so much fodder. Sure mark Darcy--to speak of him as though he were a real person--was a pretty decent guy, but who proposes to a woman after perhaps four months, at the most, of courtship? Bizarre.

I thought it a bit too patronizing of women's fantasies, condescending almost. I can fantasize with the best of them--in the interest of full disclosure--but even for me it was too much. I'm not sure how comfortable I was personally with the fact that Bridget was a real bumbling idiot, a regular screw-up, at everything--everything!!--it seemed. And now that I'm thinking of the condescension...

Was her character a shot at foolish women whose whole worlds revolve around smug-marrieds and singletons? I know I'm being simplistic but so was this movie. I know I'm not 32 either, but I'm almost 30 and while I do think about having a partner who accepts my securities and insecurities, it seems though that Bridget's whole self was wrappped up in this. I would NEVER tell another soul that I felt like a bumbling idiot ALL THE TIME, primarily because I don't. Thus the self-esteem problem with Bridget Jones, one that is not addressed in the movie. It is as if as long as Darcy accepts her as who she is there is no need for her to accept herself as she is.

By the end of this movie I'm thinking Bridget's destiny is that of her mother: to play the bumbling idiot to her husband who tires of her antics but "doesn't work without her," ironic because her mother is the one who says, in part 1, that Bridget and her father can have their grown-up talk but it doesn't give them the right to condescend to the mother. If Bridget can engage in grown-up conversation with her father, why isn't that part of her seen through her interactions with Darcy? All the moviegoers see is that she views him as a sex goddess to whom she sends text messages of "I Miss You Already" when she's 10 steps away, someone who's oh so noble enough to love her "just as she is," even if she can't do the same.