Bridget Jones’s Diary - Toxic Exes, Turkey Curry & a Casting Coup

I understand the self flushing toilet. Yeah, I think I think it's overall it is a plus for society.

Yeah, no, I yes understood.

I'm all for it. Yeah.

I don't like touching things in publics.

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely not. I do have one note.

Can it not flush while you're sitting on it?

Or even worse, when you get into the bathroom and you're like turning around, maybe you're closing the door and it flushes behind you like feed me, scares the shit out of you. So hopefully not literally that happened to me. I was in like a public restroom and like I mean I actually went like jumped in like, oh.

People laughing, I've had one flush on me, like while I'm sitting there. Yeah, and it is the most like my whole body heaves.

Yeah.

All I can think about is the next time I can take a shower.

I'm so horrified the blast of air across your nether.

Oh it's not just air. You can feel you can feel a spray.

There's a film, there's this, there's.

A spray And I'm like, oh my god, oh my god. The amount of people who use this thing before me.

I have to burn off the top layer of my skin. It's the only answer.

Now, Yeah, yeah, I have I have a lot of butt to begin with. I don't need anymore.

Hey in America, and this is that aged.

Well, yesterday's pop culture.

Today Holiday movie finale?

Should all the quaintance be forgot?

And some thinks something? Yeah that one, that one that's holiday we're doing. Yeah, everyone might be thinking, hey, there's one more Monday in December. Well you might get an episode, you might not. Let's put that on. Jeez, we'll see what happens.

We're probably gonna put one out. You're gonna put it out.

You guys, we're work hourses, you know what I mean. I mean, we don't like skipping Mondays.

We'll do something.

We'll do something, Yeah, Erica. Before we get to our final holiday movie of twenty twenty four, we do have a couple of five star Apple podcast reviews. Do you want to read one or shall I read first?

I'll read the first one.

Go for it.

This review comes from Cranky Unicorn Begging for Cookies.

I relate truly.

Truly excellent, excellent. Congratulations see u BFC. You fucking nailed it.

You know, because what it does is it calls to mind a picture. Yeah, you see the unicorn. You see the dissatisfaction on the unicorn's face. Uh huh, and you see it asking as politely as it can in that moment for someone to hand over a goddamn snick er dud All.

It's a goddamn cookie, now, don't you?

So?

They write ran out of true crime podcasts, so here I am. The only crime committed here is against the English language.

Yeah.

While pursuing a true crime Reddit thread, I found that aged well all right, uh well, Paul, those those mysterious murders have finally caught up to you.

All those missing teenagers in Paul's town.

It's finally caught up to them. It's not my usual, but it's fantastic. I love listening to their recap slash ratings of my favorite movies, as well as their recaps of movies I haven't seen excellent. I would love to hear them cover Anaconda and thumb Billina. Both of these movies I don't think they could be any more opposite, have stayed in my brain since childhood, and I think they'd make for great episodes.

Can we find a connection between Anaconda and Okay? I have it. I have it because the snake is so big. I've never seen anaconda, seen anaconda?

Have you seen Thumbilina?

I have not. Oh but maybe the like how big the snake is makes the people smaller, like Thumbelina, like their thumb berlinas to the snake.

Yeah, uh huh yeah yeah or actually, but I think it is is ll coolj is in both films.

Ah, that's what it is, isn't jaylo and Anaconda?

She sure is sure? Shit is Paul?

Do we need a beast movie month? I survived Jaws. That's the worst one.

I think you definitely do Anaconda. Yeah, yeah, I'm not Rachnophobia.

That's a great film. Oh that's actually pretty fun.

Is that John Candy?

No, no, no, no no, it's John Goodman. It's John Goodman. It's Jeff Danielska. It's spiders.

It's great if you cross spiders. Actually, don't bother me. But a movie advertising itself as I'm going to terrify you with spiders. I'm gonna be like, I believe you. I bet you Ken, I bet you Ken. We also have a review today from Ebo thirteen and they write formidable memory Hot Foxes seconding and manifesting an episode on the animated robin Hood. Hot Fox robin Hood shaped a generation, and I cannot wait for Erica to witness it for the first time. This is not me. I did not

Look the response we have gotten to the idea of that fox like opening the door to people's sexualities in a way they did not know they needed. It's a joke on Kimmy Schmidt that every once in a while pops up on my Instagram feed like that. Like Instagram is like girl like I can't tell you enough how much you need to watch the animated Robinhood.

Here is Tina Fey telling you you must watch it.

We'll get to it. We will get to it, all right, Cranky Unicorn begging for cookies Ebo thirteen, Thank you for those five star Apple podcast reviews. If you would like that drill tote bag to go along to bring to the grocery, to bring anywhere you need to put stuff in, let me know this is you. I will send it off for you very happily. Erica, what is the what's the New Year's Eve movie that we're discussing it.

Yes, today's film cover It covers New Year's Eve, it covers Christmas, It covers a whole, a whole gammut. Today's film is the two thousand and one romantic comedy Bridget Jones Diary.

Yes, Bridget Jones Diary was requested by Jojo, Steph Mara, Sidney, Jessica, jan Kelly Storia, Rebecca, Daniel, Marianne Okay, Daniel, Sophie, a couple of people whose names I could not determine from their social media profiles, and of course Erica, our patrons who decide the movie our last movie every month or our less subject every month than those months that we do TV. This time we pulled Bridget Jones Diary against two hundred.

Cigarettes Okay, both classic New Year's.

Lastic New Year's, these movies. Now, Bridget Jones Diary did win pretty handily, sixty one percent to thirty nine percent understood, yep, which I think we both expected, but I think we're both hoping.

I really love Bridget Jones's Diary spoiler you guys, which I love this goddamn movie, so I'm not. I was really happy when this one.

Okay, I've never seen two hundred cigarettes though, yeah okay, and I know.

You have and you like it.

I like it. And let me tell you something. Every once in a while, the people who are who are commenting on these polls, the commenters were one hundred percent for two hundred cigarettes. The Bridget Jones people were like, vote and leave. I know, I'm good, and the commenters were they were trying to trying to drum up more.

People, more people for two hundred cigarette cigarettes.

It's so good.

We see you two hundred cigarettes people. We will do it one day. And also, for you classic movie snobs out there like me, I understand that I skipped the actual best New Year's Eve film of all time, which is The Apartment.

I will be taking no questions.

All right. So Bridget jones Diary was written by Helen Fielding, Andrew Davies and Richard Curtis from Fielding's nineteen ninety six novel of the same name. It's a fast turnaround from novel to optioned to movie to released.

I read this book. I loved this book all right. Yeah when it came out.

It was directed by Sharon Maguire and stars Renee Zellweger Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, and Jemma Jones.

Bridget Jones Diary was nominated for one Academy Award Best Actress for Renees Elwiger. WHOA, I didn't know that.

I'd forgotten that this was the height of Zelwegger. Wow.

I do love when like comedies get their due.

Yeah, but she very bravely did gain twenty pounds for the role Erica. We must remember.

Yeah, but you know, but the person she lost to is Holly Berry from Monsters, And.

There's more bravery there.

There's a little slightly more bravery there. I think she went without makeup.

She went without makeup even then, and I'm.

I'm a completist. I was like, that looks like a bummer.

It's like a real drag. I can't watch that. Bridget Jones Diary spawned a film series with sequels Bridget Jones The Edge of Reason and Bridget Jones Baby following the original, making it the first movie trilogy directed exclusively by women.

Oh hell yeah.

Another sequel, Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy, is set to be released in twenty twenty five, but sadly will be directed by a man.

By a Manly You know what. That's men can direct things to you. Guys, they can, it can't.

It's not. It doesn't have to be a woman every time.

Yeah, like some guys have maybe even have good ideas every once in a while.

Sometimes a man can be useful sometimes sometimes not always sometimes.

I saw the first two films.

I did not see Bridget Jones's Baby, This movie that we're gonna talk about today, I really love. The next one is diminishing returns, I think, sure, So I wouldn't necessarily recommend end watching the sequels. Okay, maybe the third one's great and I'm missing out.

But you read the second book, and you like the second book.

I did love the second book.

Yeah, yeah. I also think it's interesting that this is a rom com sequel, So the happily ever after at the end of this movie does not hold because it remains a rom com. So, like, I think it's interesting to do a sequel to a rom com and then like show the obvious, very big problems these two people would have.

Yeah, they are polar opposite.

Polar opposite people, and like they respect each other's I think honesty about who they are. I think that's what actually binds them together. I think it's interesting to do that because a lot of the big problems of the rom com comes in and then you're like, but these people would hate each other in two months, and they're like, okay, let's show that. Yeah.

Honestly, I was thinking about this this morning if I were Helen Fielding and maybe she did pitch this and people were like, no, it's too highbrow, but like, you know, this is Pride and Prejudice. This book, so like the second book would have been Emma r Bridget Jones turns into Emma although she now has her love interest, so that's sort of elighted. But I don't know, or another one like another another, like classic novel of some sort.

You are pitching a film series that someone absolutely would have would have been let in like nineteen ninety eight. Yeah, I don't know if we can get it past now.

I don't think we can do it now.

Yeah, unfortunately, But yeah, that's that would have been interesting because that's I like that. I really like the like the analog to Pride and Prejudice in this. It makes me laugh, Like the little tiny things they put in for folks who really enjoy Pride and Prejudice excellent well, you don't have to know that story at all to enjoy the film.

I don't really I saw the movie once, but I don't really know the story, and I enjoy this movie.

Yeah.

Great.

You know who else enjoyed this movie?

Paul Yep.

The critics.

Okay, Bridget Jones Diary has an eighty percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an eighty one audience score.

It weirdly as a seventy.

On chair Well, okay, not weirdly. We will talk about that. It doesn't age super well. By the way I said earlier, I loved that second book. That second book has some stuff that does not age well. And if you're like, oh, Erica loves that book, I should read it, And then you're like, oh, slightly racist.

I know that's in there.

I do, I do. I'm aware.

I'm aware.

It's just it's still it's still sort of funny to me. But yeah, it's the seventy percent on cherry Picks.

What do you think?

I think that's about right. I can see why it dips when we only take the women into account. There's some potential, maybe a little internalized misogyny somewhere happening in here. I think maybe a little bit, because like I'm sure everyone our age and perhaps young a little bit younger remembers like when this came out, it was like Renees zel Wegger gained twenty pounds And there's a couple of times in the movie where they talk about how she's

She looks gorgeous in those scenes are like she's in her underwear.

She looks great.

Oh I know, I'm like, damn girl, well done.

Yeah, and I think that perhaps could turn off some ladies, which I completely understand. Yeah, I would probably give it like a seventy five. I think the constraints of a rom com come in and kind of push it down a little bit. Sometimes it gets a little contrived at certain points, which is fine. I don't I'm not criticizing it really, but it just doesn't make it a transcendent movie for me. Yeah, what about you? Ninety ninety? I give it a ninety.

I really do think it's a really smart adaptation of a classic.

I think they did a great job updating it. I totally get why some of the humor doesn't age well in this one.

The second one, the humor doesn't age well in another.

Way, and I again.

That's a whole other episode.

But in this one, I actually think it's it's a comment on like the internalized misogyny and like just the way they feel about themselves. And I think the conversation surrounding the movie when it was coming out changed people's perspective on the film. Yeah, and like made people sour on the film prematurely, because if you just take it at face value without like I mean, I'm not kidding if you weren't alive back then or weren't paying attention

I take it back, I actually think the movie ages quite well.

Yeah, that's an interesting perspective because I had thought about that a little bit. I think that's something for a woman to say, not a man say.

I'll let you have an opinion this time. But yeah, the toxic conversation around this movie.

Was awful well because I also when I was watching it, I was like, well, maybe maybe Helen Fielding, who I presume like wrote this book, maybe she is like a woman who is a little less stereotypically beautiful than renees Elwegger, Like maybe, And then you know, Hollywood gets the movie and they cast like you put glasses on a woman into suddenly she's hideous, right Like then they looked at Hell and feeling I'm like, this bitch looks like Kim Control.

Still feels that.

It feels that way.

That's where I think it's kind of That's the where I think it agedes well, and kind of it gets to like a truth that is not universally universally acknowledged.

Yeah, all right, Erica, when did you first see Bridget Jones's.

Diary Opening fucking weekends?

Opening weekend and you were sat?

I was in. Well, I mean, I'm the I'm the target audience for this.

I read the book. I really liked it. I love Pride and Prejudice. Like I could not be more the target audience for this. The fact that they cast Colin Firth to play the Darcy role was such a coup at the time.

I remember, I remember that. Yeah, like, do you know.

That in the book she is constantly watching the BBC Pride and Prejudice with him in it, and they like refer to Colin Firth as like the hottest man on Earth. Oh really obviously had to take it out for the movie, but like that he.

Is a plot point in the book.

That is a coup.

That is great casting. Yeah, that is a coup. So yeah, I could not be more of the target audience for this. And I have seen it.

I don't know fifty times, I've seen it a lot. Yeah, how about you.

I definitely saw it in theaters. I remember really liking it and thinking it was very charming, and again we cannot overstate the discussion of weight, which it's not absent in the movie, Like, there definitely is stuff about her weight in the movie. But what I was expecting, based on my memory having seen it like once in two thousand and five and one two thousand and one, whenever it was right, and then in the intervening years go by, I was expecting this to have someone calling her a

Also, I feel like two thousand and one was like that skinny Oh yeah, skinny skinny model.

Look it was we love and respect peak Cameron Diaz. It was. Yeah, it was eight feet tall, one hundred pounds.

One hundred pounds. It was like those genes that go down past your pelvic bone.

Yeah, it was the genes that stopped directly above your vagina. Yeah. Yeah, vaginal coverage only.

Like and if you did not have a close shave, people were seeing things. Yeah, like it was just that look at the time, like and that was so normalized in the culture that I feel like, I'm trying to remember if I thought she was fat when I first saw the movie.

I don't remember that.

I do remember the conversations that other people were having, but I don't remember what my own reaction was and if she looked different, like the way where I was like, wow, I've never seen someone like that on screen before.

I maybe do not remember having that reaction at all. I remember thinking more like they're doing the thing that they always do, which is like Bridget rarely does her hair very well, like like she kind of brushes it and throws it back right like. Then there's once see in the beginning, very randomly where she has a beautiful quaft head of hair, like in the morning, and I'm like, what what was happening on setting that day?

That's her day after she's hung over? Yeah, look, yeah that's what that's that's supposed to be ugly.

And I'm like, she looks amazing. And then she goes back to the again just normal hair, like nothing nothing done with it.

That's over hair, bitch, you gotta live in your bed head hair. Your bed head hair is your best hair.

It's your best hair. Yeah, But I don't remember it all thinking like she looks fat or at all. I don't remember thinking that doesn't like it looks like Renadese would have gained weight. Like. I just remember being like, that's what we're talking about.

Yeah, that was such a and it was funny, is I What I do remember when I watched it the first time was like being very impressed with her English accent.

Which I read British people are, oh really yes, because apparently she used the same British British accent coach as one Gwyneth Paltrow did for Emma, and everyone thought Gwyneth Paltrow was British for a good five years.

Fucking nails that accent, like truly nails it. Yeah.

So yeah, I've read that the English people were like, good job to you.

Well done, that's off.

Yeah, cheers.

Well you know what that means, Paul. That means that we get to do our flawless.

English English accents everyone throughout this recap, All right, Erica. The tagline for Bridget Jones's diary is all women keep score. Only the great ones put it in writing. No, doesn't really have anything. It doesn't actually have anything with the movie. Sorry, No, Okay, so I have I have a backup for you, because there were two on the main poster. How's this one? Okay, uncensored, Uninhibited, unmarried.

That's perfect.

There you go. Okay, it's actually really good. Yeah, one of the two eight bad?

Yeah, I want to read the iTunes synopsis.

Okay, here we go. Academy Award winner Renee Zellweger Best Supporting Actress, Cold Mountain, Chicago.

Did she went for Chicago too?

No, she didn't really went for Cold Mountain. She went for Cold Mountain.

She earned that fucking oscar. She's amazing in that.

And Hugh Grant love actually star in a delightful comedy about the ups and downs of modern romance. Bridget Zelwegger, 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, Hugh Grant, and another who's so wrong for her he could be just right Colin Firth.

Actually, except for the fact that they wrote be just right instead of just be right or something like that, that I actually really like this.

I think this is pretty good. Yeah, they make such a big deal about the diary, but the diary doesn't really do much in the movie. He just kind of like hangs out in the background and then it becomes a plot point at the buryer.

I know, well, because the book is written from the diaries.

It's a diary. Yeah yah, so you're just reading the diary, so they like, I get it. I get why they can't do that the whole movie. I agree they should have put more diary entries.

More diary. Yeah, yeah, I would have loved to listen to more of them or see her writing them more. A little Monday morning called backing for you.

Actual synopsis. Guys, it's Pride and Prejudice without Lydia. Oh, it's better Pride and Prejudice.

We've removed the annoying sites.

We've taken a shitty sister out.

Flick. All right, everyone stick around. We are going to play some commercials and then we'll come right back. If you don't want to listen to commercials, if you want to scad out all over to our Patreon, Patreon dot com slash that Aged Well podcast. You can sign up for any paid tier and you will get add free episodes every Monday morning like everybody else. Future Paul here listeners. I just want to let you know that Patreon now

We open on Bridget Jones. Renees Elwiger walking through a snowy London evening. In voiceover, she tells us it all began on New Year's Day, on my thirty second year of being single. I'm doing strong choice, I'm doing Adele.

But you're doing somethout like Muppet baby. Adele's something in there.

I want to I want credit for saying thirty seconds.

I also enjoyed single.

Bridget is on her to her mother's New Year's Eve turkey curry buffet.

Is a turkey curry buffet a thing. British listeners, please reach out genuinely let me know.

I want it so bad.

When she showed, when she like puts that turkey curry on her plate, I'm like, that looks amazing.

Okay making a turkey curry.

The crazy thing is is like my husband hates doesn't really. The thing is is like the turkey is like Christmas dinner. So the assumption would be that this is You're like, oh, we're taking the leftovers and making a curry. But New Year's just a full week after Christmas. I'm like, how long did you freeze the turkey?

Is this safe to eat at this point? Oh? Yeah, it's fine.

Did you make a new second turkey to have this turkey curry buffet?

Maybe they have ham for Christmas and turkey curry.

Turkey curry.

Oh yeah, that does sound doesn't turkey curries sound great?

I don't know. I'm a little more iffy on it than you all gotta be.

I like a curry, you honestly, any curry, and like a nice white meat curry. Y.

I like a masamon curry.

Oh I do too, I do. But this therry in this film looks amazing.

Continuing on, moving on, So she's on her way to her mother's party, New Year's party, knowing full well that her mother will, as always be trying to set her up with some quote unquote bushy ANDed, middle aged.

Bo that was almost Australia.

I think that one was Australia. No, no, no, Paul. That's how the Queen's.

Peaks, because that is the Queen's English.

That's the Queen's English.

She's greeted at the door by her mother, Pamela, played by the excellent Jemma Jones, and Bridget says that her mother is and I'll just do this in an English, in an American accent, to quote unquote, a strange creature from a time when girkins on toothpicks were the height of sophistication.

I didn't know that times at the seventies.

The seventies.

Yeah, So basically she's calling her mother like a film baction the seventies. Some of the things the mother says, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely old fashioned.

Yeah, there's there's there's gonna be some lines in the scene from the mother.

Who you're like, oh, okay, I got who that woman is right away. Her mother, with a sparkle in her eye, tells Bridge that the Darcy's are there and they've brought Mark. Then she sends Bridget upstairs to change into an outfit she's laid out for her. She Bridget came wearing like, you know, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day. Really it's not New Year's Eve, it's it's the day after. So she's she's been hungover, she's exhausted, she's been out all night.

She came in just like sweatpants and a nice, like great gray sweater, and her mother says to her, oh, darling, you'll never get a boyfriend if you look like you've just wandered out of Auschwitz.

And I heard that line, I actually physically recoiled. I was like, holy shit, it's to be clear, it's funny. It's a funny.

It's a funny line tells.

You everything you need to know about this woman.

One hundred percent.

Yeah.

And Bridget's reaction to it, it's so like she just rolls her eyes. She's like, I've heard.

That line before, believe it or not, Like I would understand why someone would be like, WHOA, that's a lot, and it's a lot to put in the first minute of a movie.

The movie does not get harder.

Than that, absolutely not, like even on the mom It gets a lot easier on the mom after that. But if they're like trying to like tell you exactly who this woman is from the jump, that's who this woman is.

She also has a line about Mark that his wife left him. She was Japanese. Very cruel race, very cruel race. In this movie that has absolutely no people of color in it.

I think there's one person of color who's in one scene and that's it.

All right. So Bridget returns to the party in a holiday monstrosity. She says she's wearing a carpet. I do feel like that's generous. She's wearing a crimson button down with a wide lace collar under an awful embroidered vest and matching skirt.

Horrible.

She looks like a couch.

Horrible, like a couch from the seventies.

From the seventies at the North Pole that missus Claus was like, this is a lot.

I'm gonna put it in the basement. Yeah, I'm gonna put this couch in the base This.

Is this is This is for us when we go downstairs to the den and we're gonna play video games.

Yeah. This is for the elves who need a break and need to crash somewhere.

Visits for the elves to fuck on when they're.

Because elf splooge looks exactly like this cat.

That's right, it's multi colored.

Bridget is immediately accosted by family friend quote unquote uncle Jeffrey, who grabs her ass and asks her about her love life, while another family friend, Una, played by Celia Imrie. So Una and Jeffrey don't really have that much to do, but I have to bring them up here because it's Celia Imri who's brilliant. It's brilliant, and she gets some just absolute banger lines, like when she points out your career girls can't pull it off forever and She's like just dancing to no music. Negative.

Well her husband is actively groping Bridge. Yeah, like, yeah, yeah, it's a lot.

It's a lot that Uncle Jeffrey character is. But I mean like people have those people in their lives, Like women have those people in their lives and it sucks. And I'm like, I'm really glad they put this in the movie.

It was something watching it for me or I was like, I bet in nineteen ninety six or two thousand and one, when I saw the movie, I would have been like, well, that's over the top and insane. And now because I've learned and listen Uncle Jeffrey's I was like, I bet that's real. That's awful.

Happened to Helen Fielding.

Yep, that's a real thing. Uh. So, Bridget flees to her father Colin, played by Jim Broadbent, with whom she shares both a cigarette and a kinship. Right, these are these are the two islands of sanity in this whirlwind of insanity. I have to point out, did you notice that Jim Broadbent is absolutely not smoking that cigarette?

Oh no, I didn't notice.

He brings the cigarette to his lips, he takes a cigarette away, then he audibly inhales and then he never exhales an he smoke, and he does it twice in the movie.

He is a better actor than that.

Come on, Jim, Like, I'm sure they're herbal cigarettes. Maybe he has as Maybe he's like someone who literally can't asthma or something or something. Yeah, but he smokes like that the whole time. See him smoking. He's not smoking the cigarette.

There's so much cigarette smoking in this movie. It's why remember back when do people could smoke? In movie?

People just everyone just smoking.

Her her friends are just constantly smoking. Yeah.

So Pamela Ushus Bridget over to meet Mark Darcy played by Casting Coup Colin. First, Bridget is briefly hopeful because he's a tall drink of water, tall, dark and handsome, tall, dark and handsome ding dong. Maybe Mummy got it right this time. But these hopes are crushed when Bridget looks down and sees that Mark is wearing a reindeer jumper.

Can I say my immediately even if even if he did it look like Colin Firth, which is a very pretty picture, I'd been like, that's a plus, that's a sense of humor. That's what I think yeah.

Yeah, it turns out it's not as.

But like I would have been, I would have fallen into the trap.

Yeah yeah, glass houses, Bridget, glass houses. You are wearing a carpet. He still looks better than that.

Best you are wearing it. You were wearing a a elf Monica Lewinsky.

Dress, an afghan made of elf.

Splue, do not you get wearing black light on that thing?

Pamela immediately embarrasses Bridget by referencing her running through Mark's lawn naked when she was a child. She leaves, and then Bridget and Mark stand there in awkward silence for a second. He's really awkward, cannot make conversation to save his life.

You will find out later that he is.

A top lawyer who has to argue for someone's civil rights in court. And I'm like, but you can't even make conversation at a party.

Say what you want about lawyers, Generally, they're good conversation we loquacious.

This man is not.

Bridget attempts to make conversations. She just keeps pointing out all her own what she thinks are faults. She's like, oo, yes, got to make some New Year's resolutions. Stop drinking so much. And then she takes a drink and she's like, A didn't stop smoking? And then she looks at her the lit cigarette in her hand. She's like ha, and then she goes and then just stop talking total nonsense to strange people.

Am I right?

She like pokes him in the chest. He could not look more uncomfortable. He stonewalls her. Yeah, does not say a word.

Have you ever been this rude to someone?

No?

No, I can't.

Well, I'm always the bridget well, I'm never the mark. I've never stood in silence for a human being in my life.

Two of us, can you imagine we should try it once? We should? We should we should like go to a party and see which of us can go longer without speaking. Oh my god, I'm betting you one of us loses in fifteen seconds.

It won't even be close.

I can't give people the silent treatment when I'm mad at them, because it hurts me more than them. So I have to think of other meaner ways to get back at people when.

They fuck with me.

You you more psychological warfare, Well, yeah, I get get nicer.

I get yeah, well I get nicer, but also meaner. Say things that are like, Oh, they're gonna think about that in two years. That's gonna that's good. They're gonna talk to their therapists about this later. So we cut away to a few moments later, right, and Bridget's serving herself some food.

It's some perfect curry, some.

Turkey curry, the turkey.

Curry buffet, and she overhears Mark talking to his mother and him referring to her as a verbally incontinent spinster who smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, and dresses like her mother.

Damn, none of that.

Is a lie.

To be fair, to be fair, to be fair, all of these things are true. But I find them as features, not bugs, except for the dressing.

The dressing which was not her choice. Really, it's not her choice.

She's in her thirties. She's in her thirties.

But let me tell you something, if you had a mother like that, you'd be like, you know what path of least resistance? Fine? Yeah, Like, she's not expecting Mark to be attractive, so she puts it on before she knows what Mark looks like. Yeah, maybe uncle Jeffrey will grab my ass less if I look like a north Pole settee has Colin Firth's voice, and I know this is what he does, like this buttoned up gentleman. It's so naisy. It's so high on his mouse. Yeah, it's

It's like he's like he's like Couse playing posh in his His whole thing is just like, I'm just glad to make my face as tight as I possibly can.

I'm gonna have so much luck, Joe, I.

Will not speak to you with my mouth open.

So Bridget's voice over kicks in again, and she tells us that that was the moment she realized that if something didn't change soon, she was gonna live a life that would ultimately end with her dying alone. Bridget, I'm here to tell you we all die alone. Just get used to the idea. Stop worrying so much about it.

Happy holidays everyone, from us at that agel to you. We will all die alone.

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.

We cut to her apartment. She's lying in her pajamas on the couch. She's watching Fraser, she's drinking wine, and she's smoking as Celine Dion's all by myself, Blaze.

Okay, except for the smoking. I've never smoked in my life. Yeah, this looks like my ideal Saturday night.

I actually watched this. It was like, I bet Erica. This feels personal to Erica.

This is a personal attack this movie. Look, I'm not even in my thirties. I'm now in my forties. Yeah, and watching Fraser while drinking wine on my couch is the greatest thing I've ever done.

I was like, watch it. You say about a fucking friend, that's my friend. You're talking about this.

All by myself.

Riff is so good and to this day, I don't know if I've ever seen another movie that copies it. Where like, now we're going to get the title sequence, Yeah, of the film, the movie starts, and then five.

Minutes in, Yeah, there's a cold open.

There's a cold open, and we have seen that before, but we've never What I've at least never seen before is the main character doing of a lipsing for her life to Seline Dion song while the title sequence is going everything about this A plus no notes agreed.

Okay, So she decides she's going to start a diary with all the truth about Bridget Jones, and she starts to list off her resolutions. She's gonna lose twenty pounds. She is at this point one hundred and thirty six pounds.

Oh wow, yes, right, that's right.

So she wants to be a one hundred and fifteen.

One hundred and fifteen cool, cool, cool, yep. I mean, I don't know what a women way. I remember reading charts because I'm I'm five foot one, five feet really, and like I remember reading charts when I was like in my teens and twenties. That's say that I should weigh one hundred and five pounds.

No adult should weigh a hundred and five pounds.

I remember, like in doctors' offices, like because you're five feet tall, you're very short, you really should be weighing about one hundred and five pounds.

Yeah.

I was like in one leg, I was like, what are you talking about?

That doesn't take into also into account at all? How broad you are?

Nothing, Like, it's taken absolutely nothing about my body composition into account, and a doctor was telling me that I need to weigh one hundred and five pounds.

She also resolves to always put away last night's penies in the laundry, and also to find a nice, sensible boyfriend and stop fantasizing about alcoholics, workaholics, commitment, phobics, peeping toms, megalomaniac's, emotional fuckwits or perverts, and particularly about a certain someone who is all of those things.

Emotional fuck with is the best sentence ever.

I literally when she said peeping tom's, I was like, that's such a weird thing because in my head again, boy boy brain, I'm like, a peeping tom is someone who like climbs up a tree out at your window. And I'm like, no, actually, that's not what a peeping tom is. Just someone who looks down your shirt at work, boy brain, really fucks you up. You just don't see these things until you see them.

Smash cut to a brief flashback as Daniel Kleva played by Hugh Grant, Bridget's boss, arrives at the company Christmas party and grimaces as she's standing on her desk doing a karaoke rendition of can't can't live if living is without you?

Do holiday parties have karaoke machine?

They should?

Well they should, Yes.

Yes, I have karaoke with almost every team I've ever worked with. People love to go karaoke with their.

Colleagues't know why I'm given the amount of songs that are about sex, yeah, and or have like words you don't want to say in front of your colleagues and them.

I don't know why karaoke is a thing.

Okay, the next time you go, please invite me as your date because I want. I want to karaoke with office workers and I've never done it.

They do let it, they let loose. They're karaoke So yeah, he grimaces and she's like.

Cat live live it with weout you.

No one would watch us and think this woman would be an oscar for playing Judy Garland in twenty years not on this track line.

Does she win for that she did?

God damn it, Brunettes Eliger, you're on her role despite her best efforts at work, Bridget can't stop fantasizing about Daniel Eric.

I have a question for you, Uh huh? Has anyone's hair ever looked as good as Hugh Grant's in this movie? And before you answer, I want to remind us everyone listening of William Kat's hair and Carrit.

Literally was thinking. Except for the entire cast of Carri.

No and possibly Sam neil in.

Hold on he's playing Charide playing Chi.

There was like a boxing motion and then and then a throat rip boxing motion. Throat Rip's that to me sounds like you're doing You're doing to work.

She Wards first word driving car, road Roadhouse, Samuel's not in Roadhouse, Sam.

Elliott, sam Elliot's herod Roadhouse. Maybe as good as.

Hugh Grant for fuck ability, for sheer fuckability, Hugh Grant. Congratulations, you win, you win. I'm gonna take a moment here to talk about Hugh Grant because Hugh Grant has been having a moment in pop culture lately. He has been doing interview after interview because he is working constantly these days, because he has a lot of kids. He has a lot of kids. He has embraced his surly, churlish I refuse to be polite to people.

It is so good. Is he the British Larry David. It's possible.

It's also something about it because you don't I don't think I've ever heard a story about him being like nasty on set to people to the extent that it's a problem. Like I don't think he's pleasant, but he's not like making people cry or anything.

Right, I don't know from what I've heard, I have not heard.

The only time I've heard about him being nasty on set is an actual conversation between him and Emma Thompson on Graham Norton when she was like, you were a monster on Sense and Sensibility.

He's like, I know, I was terrible. I'm so sorry. He's like, I was feeling fat and I just looked terrible and I hated myself.

Because he'll say it too, he's like, I'm an asshole. I'm a grouchy asshole, and like that's who I am, And like he was everyone's dream boyfriend from like ninety four till Divine Brown.

Right, Yeah, everyone thought he was just like wide eyed innocent and then obviously he's not. And that's the other thing too, is I feel like he gets away with so much, like no one's like, what an asshole about that guy? Because it's baked into who he is in a way where you're expecting it. Like when Patti LuPone, yeah, is kind of a bitch to someone, You're like, well, yeah, that's Patti LuPone.

Yeah, Ay, she's earned it, and b that's what we paid for and none of them.

They're not denying it, they're not trying to they're not ellening, they're not being nice, and then awful back stage like, no, I'm an asshole. I know I'm an asshole. Like I'm being honest about it, and I'm not changing it because I'm Hugh Grant and I don't fucking have to. And like, on a certain level, I respect.

That I do too.

I have to say, I'm loving this version of Hugh Grant that we're getting.

If I got on set with you, Grant, I would know my fucking lines, and I probab wouldn't look him in the eye, but like, yeah, I would.

I would do.

I would wait two weeks to talk to him. I'd wait for I have something really funny to say, yeah and make him laugh. And that's my that's my way in Yeah.

All right. So we cut to Bridget with her found family at a bar. These are her three best friends in the world, Jude, Shaza and Tom or As I thought of them moaning myrtle, Selena Meyers Finish Nemesis from Veep, and Doctor guyas Balter from Battlestar Galactica.

Yeh, all very famous actors at this point. I based quite a lot of my adult personality on Shazza.

Oh, I just want you to know that I can see that.

Yeah, yeah, that works fuck.

A lot, Yes a lot.

That's kind of it.

Yeah, that's all I got. There's there's a joke about Tom having been like a one hit wonder pop star in the eighties and he's not.

I'm laid for the whole of the nineties.

Yeah, and it's it doesn't appear to be that he tried to keep writing music. It's that he just decided good enough and like I have everything I want. Tom is gay. I'm getting all of the dick that I want, so I shall not release more music.

Yeah, yeah, what do I think about the word poof? To be clear, we're not English. Yeah, I don't know if you know that because of our flawless English accents.

But I'm coming out of the closets.

I'm going down to close and so for example, I'm hoping I didn't offend anyone just now saying it. But I'm like curious, is that, Like, I don't know if we have an analogous word that's like.

A fun I would think it like now, maybe not in two thousand and one, but it's like a fruit, a fruit. Yeah, Like I do not find it offensive. I don't know if I should, but it is my understanding that it's a pretty accepted word.

I think so, yeah, and like they say it a lot.

She says it a lot, and she's clearly like at least a tom an ally yeah, although at one point later in the movie she's like, I'm going to a party mostly poofs, which.

Is the wrong the wrong way to say that line, I'm going to a party mostly poofs is the correct way.

Well, because she's like, I guess I'm just never going to find a man because all I hang out with her gay men.

So they're at the bar, they're drinking, they're smoking like chimneys. They take her home and she falls out of the car and none of her friends seems surprised or concerned that she fully face plants into like a snow drift on her sidewalk. They're like, bye, also, you and.

I cannot underistdate how much English people drink.

It's true. So we cut to Bridget at work. She is wearing a very short skirt. I think you feel like for the nineties, not particularly remarkable for now.

Not remarkable.

Yeah, and also, to be clear, she's wearing stockings. She sits down. She receives a flirty email from Daniel. The way they dramatize this email is wild because it seems like she has to click every time to see who it's from, then the subject line, and then the body of the email. It's like three separate clicks. But whatever.

Yeah.

Bridget reports to her diary that her resolution to stop fantasizing about Daniel has hit a real speed bump, but she restates her mission to find a sensible boyfriend.

Unfortunately, instead, how counterpoints.

On the other hand, instead of finding a reasonable boyfriend, she dives headfirst into further flirtation with Daniel, because obviously, who wouldn't who wouldn't want who would not want that man?

Like at least a night a month?

Yeah, Yeah, if you can get him for a month, great, good for you can.

I ask something. Ladies, put your hands on the cancel button. I'm prepared.

Oh, get ready, get ready, we're gonna cancel.

Paul. This is it the outfit that she walks in with, which is the fully sheer top with her bra exposed.

Yep, I wouldn't wear that.

That is a little inappropriate for the office, isn't it.

I'm gonna say, I'm gonna you know what, Guys, remove your hands from the candle button. We're fine, We're good, We're good.

Okay.

Uh yeah, no, I would say that's that's inappropriate now, where like a lot of sheer is in passion, but in Yeah no, in two thousand.

And one, her black bra could not be more visible.

Yeah, yeah, she's wearing she's wearing. I mean, it's not a sheer top, it's a fully see through top.

Yeah.

My honestly too, I would be concerned if I sat down in that that I would get like a stomach pooch in the office.

I don't know everyone does.

Yeah, that's that would be my concern you have.

That's why the stars have people retouching their photos and retouching their movies when they sit down.

Look, they have no facts so she heads into the office in a fully see through top that no one no one says anything about. That's progressive, that's progressive.

That office is like, well, all right, she looks inappropriate, but no one's gonna say anything.

There is a woman in the office who.

Yes, the character's name is Perpetua.

It is the greatest name because she's supposed to be like the uptight woman who Bridget works with, who's like her senior.

Yeah, slightly senior, and therefore thinks she owns me.

Yeah, it is how she describes her in the But her name is Perpetua, and like, what a fucking fantastic character name, perfect Perpetua. Yeah.

So she and Daniel continue their graphic email flirtation. At one point he goes, like, your tit's in that top, and she goes, how dare you harass me in this impertinent manner? I'm very important and busy, And then she gets into the elevator. He comes in after her and gives her a little surreptitious ass grab in the elevator, which she goes, ooh too, only because she wants Daniel is this okay, yeah, do not touch people's asses, And the yell actually none of this is okay. Everything they're

She like fucking nailed it. Did I would not have guessed this woman would have that level of self control for her.

All good for her. She must have really been planning this out. If he asks me out, I will respond with this sentence because yeah, as we will find, she is not good off the cuff. This is not a woman you want flying by the seat of her very short skirt because she you don't know what she'll say.

So Bridge so she has an immediate dinner with her family, her profound family, her friends. She's like, okay, quick summit of the friends. They advise her that the next evening at their business function, she has to look gorgeous, and then once she's at the party, she has to ignore Daniel and mingle and party with all the glitterati that

I can't do that woman's voice. No pressure bridge, but your whole future depends on this one occasion.

I absolutely love that actress. She's in everything once you know her, she's in absolutely everything, and she's brilliant in everything.

So we cut to the book lawn this as the next night. This is their big work event. They work at a publishing house.

I remember we said that they work at a publishing house. This is going to be important later, so I want to mention this. And she is a marketing assistant, maybe a marketing coordinator, like slightly higher up than an assistant, but like she is in marketing.

Yep, just want to make sure that's clear.

It's very much seems like a job that she fell ass backwards into it, like a low level job at this company right out of college.

Yeah, she has a communications degree.

And like she's worked her way up two rungs. Yeah, and that's it.

Yeah, one rung at most.

Yeah. We cut to this book launch where Bridget is doing her best to circulate oozing intelligence. Unfortunately, after failing to connect with Salmon Rushdie.

Who is in this movie playing himself, Yeah.

She runs directly into Dowur Mark Darcy. Bridget, despite fantasizing about calling him a prematurely middle aged prick with a cruel raced ex wife, manages to charm a small smile out of Mark when she introduces him to Perpetua. Mark introduces her to his colleague Natasha played by m Beth.

Davitz, who's amazing in everything she does.

Natasha has her eyes on Mark right he's divorced now and they've worked together for a while, they're both barristers. Meanwhile, we see Mark and Daniel make eye contact across the party, and Bridget sees like a tension between them, like there's an immediate recognition, and then look away. It just just occurred to me, why is Mark at this party?

Because Perpetua seems to have invited Natasha and Natasha brought Marcus her date. O. It is the barest of threats, because Natasha and Perpetua seem to be quite close.

Yes, you're right.

Later in the.

Evening, Okay, Bridget's boss, so Bridget, So Daniel is Bridget's boss. But Daniel has a boss named mister fitz Herbert.

Who is the tits pervert who she calls.

Mister Tit's pervert because he stares at her tits all the time without actually knowing her.

Name or what she does at the office. And mister Tit's pervert is like, I need you to introduce me before I introduced the author of this book. The book, by the way, is called Kafka's Motorbike.

They had like a cardboard cutout of the author. He did he not look like the guy who did supersize me?

Oh?

It does?

He does?

He looks like Morgan's Yeah, is is Morgan? Because Morgan Spurlock was a thing around this, like is he gonna? Is he gonna cameo in this movie? Is this random ball? No, he doesn't.

Morgan Spurlock was after it like super Size Me was after this.

So Bridget goes on stage to introduce mister fitz Herbert, but of course she gets that thing that happens when you're like nervous and you're like, she like, don't say titz Perbert, don't say tits perper, don't say stitz Pberber. And she stumbles terribly. Yeah, and she just kind of makes it ask of herself. There are two kind of super cringe moments in the movie that actually are I find a little hard to watch.

Okay, this is one of them.

There's two, both of both of them are her giving a big speech, so she stumbles through it.

It's terrible.

The boss humiliates her further by like making fun of her as soon as he gets on stage and then introducing the evening's honoree or whatever.

Not Morgan Spurloc.

Not Morgan Spurlock.

The other guy, the guy who wrote Kafka's Motorbike, the book they're trying to sell.

I really prefer is Sartre's Model T.

I like cont tricycle.

CON's tricycle is good, But have you read Nietzsche's unicycle?

Is it better than Dosoyevsky's dodge?

I don't think so. But I think that's the real that's the winner, that's the gold standard. Yeah.

Yeah, So she's standing.

Alone at the bar smoking a cigarette, looking really sad and pathetic because she just humiliated herself in front of a room full of very famous people. Mark spots her and he tries to go to talk to her because he, you know, he wants to cheer her up a little bit. But he stops because Daniel literally swoops in. He like swoops in behind Bridget, grabs her around the waist, and he's like, all right, I insist on taking you and your little skirt out to dinner.

Now. She of course takes him up on it because she wants to get the hell out of there.

We cut to them at dinner. Daniel's telling Bridget how he and Mark knew each other from Cambridge. Daniel's even Mark's best man, but they aren't close any longer. And Bridget's like, oh why, And he says a few years prior, he introduced Mark to his fiance and it turned out to be a catastrophic mistake, implying that Mark broke up his engagement by sleeping with his fiancee.

He's mister Wickham and he's lying to Lizzie.

Remember that part in Pride and Prejudice forere Mister Wickham lies Lizzie and tells her that Darcy is a cad, but it actually turns out mister Wickham as a cat.

That's what's happening right now.

There should be a Pride and Prejudice roller coaster that you narrate like that ride in Prejudice, and you get dressed in full regency clothes, everything get strapped don because you don't want one of the dress get caught in.

A wheel, and then you go up and down a gentle roller coaster and you're like, oh no, oh no, the.

Regiment's in town. The Regiments in town. Everyone grab onto something.

And then he goes through like mister Collins tunnel, like, oh no, mister Collin's gonna read to us from the Bible for four hours.

So Bridget is shocked and offended on Daniel's behalf. And then after dinner, Daniel invites Bridget back to his place, but she refuses and he says okay. Then he pulls her in for a kiss, and surprise, surprise, they wind up back at his place. Right. It's very charming. She has on spanks. She was worrido ornsks earlier. She put them on, and then he starts to very charmingly tease her about the spanks.

Well, because she got some scary granny panties known for holding in your tummy so that you can get into a flagrante de lecto situation easier. And he goes, these are very silly little boots. As he takes off her boots and he goes, this is and this is a very silly little skirt. And then he like lifts up her skirt. He goes, and this is, oh my god, enormous panties.

The two fall into a sexual affair, but Daniel obfuscates when Bridget wonders what will happen at the office. After all, they've only been boning two days. What is she talking about? So I would guess it's about March in the year. So we started in New Year's and like two to three months have passed at this point.

Sure, we cut to Bridget in the mall, informing us in voiceover that as soon as one part of your life starts going right, of course, another must.

Fall spectacularly to pieces. And we find her mother. Her mother.

Her mother works as like a demonstrator, like a product demonstrator at a mall. And this product is so phallic it it's called have it off because it's the French word for egg, which is oof or whatever. But it's like she pronounced it, is.

It having it off? And it's basically like she it looks like you're masturbating an egg.

Yeah, you're mesurbating an egg or cocking a shotgun shotgun.

And then there's like an after spray that like shoots the egg come at you.

What is the after spray supposed to be? Presumptively, these have to be hard.

Boiled eggs, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't need it to be explained to be clear, Like this joke lands on me one hundred percent of the times on when she was moving where a woman has to explain why she's masturbating an egg to a group of people at the mall.

So afterwards, Pamela takes Bridget for a coffee and she explains that she's frustrated.

In her marriage.

She's like, I have no power, no career, no sex life. You know, I shouldn't have had kids to begin with.

She says, having children's not all that's cracked up to be given the chance again, I'm not sure i'd have them to her daughter, her only.

One, by the way, but she doesn't have a sibling. Yeah, and she's like, and I've been talent spotted and Bridget's like, what do you mean? And an opportunity might arise for her as a demonstrator on like a QVC channel, on like a British version of QVC with a man named Julian who sells.

Jewelry for way too cheap.

Yeah, when you see the movie, you're like, wait a minute, those Diamonte quote unquote Diamonte hearings are twenty dollars twenty pounds. A few weeks later, Bridget heads over to her parents' house and she finds that Colin, her father, is now living in Squalor like he is. He's the parents have essentially broken up and the father is living alone and he's just miserable and depressed without her mother. And he's

That's awful.

Pamela is so mean to I mean, it's kind of a joke, right, like Pamela Everything Pamela does because she's so like, she's so ridiculous that it's funny and it's kind.

Of a joke.

But if you really take the situation at face value, I cannot believe Colin takes her back.

There's a line that she has later where she's like, you know, she's the odd woman out. Bridget is very close to Colin and she and she's always out in the cold, and I'm like, you had bumped that up so we could see that a little bit more. But she's just again, this is a woman who's like the third line of hers is comparing someone to Auschwitz.

Like, to be fair, had Auschwitz existed in the regency era, I'm sure missus Bennett would have said the same thing to one of her daughters. So Bridget suggests that Colin and she go to Uncle Jeffrey's upcoming quote unquote Tarts and Vicker's costume party. Let's put a pin in that because I want to talk about that later and flirt with other women in order to make Pamela jealous. That's what you got to do, is you have to win her back. You got complacent in your marriage, Mom ran

Yeah, maybe now.

Is not the time to tell your dad about the perfect boyfriend you have. Well, his marriage has just essentially ended.

So we see Bridget and Danielle heading out to the country for a holiday weekend in combination with the upcoming Tarts and Vicars party, and now we're in springtime. Looks like May or early June or something. Tartsan Vickers party are apparently a real thing, by the way, in the UK, is it really? Like from what I can tell, it's a real thing that they do that, Like you're supposed to come dressed up as either like your sexual fantasy or your most like buttoned up pure or like a.

Vicar or like a priest or like a Yeah, I did not know that was a thing. Genuinely, I thought this movie like invented the premise. That is amazing and I want to go to one so badly. If you are a listener in the UK, I will buy a ticket. I will buy a ticket and I will show up as both a tart and a vicar. I'll figure it out. Yeah, invite me, please invite me.

It has to do with the robe in lifting up the robe. It it's what underneath the.

Hundred It's a pregnant it's a pregnant n showing ass crap somehow, I don't know.

I will do it. You guys, invite me your Tarts and Bigger party.

Please. I was because I was trying to figure it out. I was looking up and it seems like, yes, yeah, this is a thing from what I can tell. Maybe I'm wrong, who knows.

Wouldn't that be fun?

And then we could practice our game of not talking to people for ten seconds and see who wins.

As people sweat. Oh my god, I'm being so rude and being so rude.

And these are English people, they know how to be polite.

Yeah. Bridget and Daniel arrive at a small inn where all the rooms are booked for a wedding except theirs and one other, which turned out to be Marx, who has arrived with Natasha and will also be attending the Tarts and Vicars party. The chill between the two men is a parent, and Bridget supports Daniel by barely acknowledging Mark.

She puts her nose in the air at him.

Yeah. We cut to a lake where Mark is rowing Natasha while they're working on a case together. Right, Yeah, Daniel and Bridget each have their own canoe and a rowing run. Rowing in lakes romantic or just awful?

I love rowing a lake, do you really?

I mean, I've never done it romantically, but okay, that sounds like have you never done it in Central Park?

No?

What?

Why would I want to? Paul?

It's so fun, is it?

Yes?

I don't know, disagree, And I'm not even the athletic one of the two of us. I trust me. We're going, You and I are going. We're going to the boathouse, running boat. We're going out there.

We're also gonna sit a time for how long it takes it for both of us to wind up in the Central.

Park that in that gross reservoir green water.

So, while Mark and Natasha are doing very like barristery things, Bridget and Daniel, I think, are drinking Budweiser, which feels very weird.

They're drinking like the cheapest beer they could find and then quoting poetry to each other.

But in a like dirty limericks. Yeah yeah, they wind up falling in the water. They're laughing hysterically. Natasha can barely contain her disgust, while Mark looks on a bit longingly. I would say mm hmm. And then we cut to that night in bed and Bridget asks Daniel if he loves her. Ladies, gentlemen, everyone in between and outside those backs, don't do that.

Wait, wait for them to say it first.

They'll say it. If they're gonna say it, they'll say it.

Are you sure, Paul, I shouldn't ask everyone if they love me? That was a problem.

Okay, I knew what the barista that was a bad idea. But I really thought the guy taking my tickets at the movie theater, I thought we had a bond. I really did think we had a bond.

Well, you always tip him, which I understand. You think you're you're getting in.

All I want is for everyone to love me all the time. So is that too much to ask?

Daniel manages to distract her with sex. Earlier in the scene, he says like she says, like, oh, the thing you just did is illegal. In another multiple countries, and I'm like, anal, sex does not have to have a gentle cuddling directly afterwards. There's the whole thing that goes into it.

Maybe they did something else that's illegal in other country. Maybe they sixty nine Is that illegal in some countries?

I don't know.

Please, in some countries, fucking shaking hands is illegal. Yeah, I mean I assumed, but sex too, But but it could be something else. I suppose you're right, because the gentle cuddling.

There's there's there's an aftermath. Not trying to be gross, but.

Like there's consequences.

Yes, I think everyone can have a very good time and then perhaps a shower.

Okay, So let's say they did something else that I nominate sixty ninetys.

I'm down for that.

It's the only other thing I could think of that might be late in other countries.

The next morning, Bridget wakes up to an apologetic Daniel. He is up and dressed and packed and she's just waking up and he's telling her he has to head back to London for work, and she's like, no, can't you just at least drop me off at the party first and like come in with me for ten minutes and say hi. So, like, so I've talked to you, up to my family and friends. Everyone needs to see you, and he's like, I can't. I have to go to the office. She goes, what could be so important.

He's like, well, you don't know what's important because you just fanny around with the press releases. Yeah, he diminishes her work.

And she looks upset and he's like, I'm sorry, and then he explains to her that like quote unquote, the Americans are coming to shut them down. So she realizes he's really stressed out for work. Okay, she backs off, He drives her, and he drops her off to the party. We cut to Bridget heading into the party alone and she is dressed as a playboy bunny.

This is the same year as earlier.

I looked it up.

As I was watching this, I was like, this movie walks illegally Blonde could run. It is essentially the exact same outfit, except this one's in black and then the other was in pink. So she gets there dressed in like a Sunday brunch. She's dressed like a like the playboy bunny in the most uncomfortable sexy outfit. Oh yeah, that's the problem with the sexy outfit idea a structure.

It's so hard to breathe and eat in one of those.

Like later, she's getting a hot dog at the barbecue and I'm like, girl, where where are you gonna fit that hot dog?

Hey, listeners, future Paul here, girl, where are you gonna fit that hot dog? Title of Erica's sex tape.

Unfortunately, once she's already arrived and Daniel has left her there, she realizes that no one else is in costume. Turns out Uncle Jeffrey changed the plans and forgot to tell Bridget. Of course he didn't forget, He just wanted to see what she would show up in. He belines towards her and starts like playing with her little bunny cottontail at the end and like grabbing her ass.

And Una comes up and is like Jeffrey.

So Bridget heads to find her father and he is dressed like a vicar, and he goes, at least I didn't spend as much money as burn it. And then they cut to some random guy dressed like as the Pope, like he spent hundreds of dollars on his outfit.

It turns out that not only did Pamela show up to that party, but she fucking brought Julian with her.

So he is now face to face with his wife, whom he's separated with, and her new boyfriend. And he is just depressed and sad. He wants to sit alone in the garden and cry. And Bridget's like, no, go out there, It's only a temporary glitch. You two love each other. You gotta save this marriage. I don't know why she has so much skin in the game. She's in her thirties. Divorce isn't the worst thing in the world both.

You know what, she doesn't want to have to take care of her father.

I would rather take care of my of the father than and you know what this gives her an excuse to do is cut that mother out of her life.

Well, that's true. Fair, you take the good, you take the bed.

Yeah.

Bridget runs into Mark, who comments that Daniel isn't good enough for her, and Bridget says she thinks Daniel would say the same thing about him, and Mark is like, what So after all of this disaster at the party, Bridget is like, I'm just gonna go to Daniel's. I need to go spend time with my perfect boyfriend. So she heads there. He lets her up and he's like, look, I'm still working. I'm so sorry. Why don't you head

This is interesting. This whole storyline is very interesting. By the way small bit, but it made me laugh. The portfolio, says Pemberley Publishing. Hmmm, for the again, for the Pride and Prejudice fans out there, Yeah, that's the part of the roller coaster we go through where where it's actually really nice and there's like and there's like a teenage girl playing flawless piano while at Pemberley. Yeah, and then your uncle gets to go fishing. Maybe we're not on

It's more that like that that that gentle ride. This goes up and down for kids. Yeah, it's not really a roller coaster. It's a ride in prejudice.

It's a ride in prejudice.

Also, I just want to point out that Laura has one of the lines it's really directly about Bridget's weight where she said I thought you said she was thin to Daniel as Bridget's leaving, and it's like, woman, there is no need, bitch.

Yeah, she's the lydia.

I guess if we have a lydia in the film, it's this woman. So Bridget is despondent, but of course she has to still see Daniel at work because they work together, so she tries to remain professional. She has to go into his office to give him like some weekly report on like sales.

I just want to point sorry, I just want to point out here that she has changed how she's dressing completely. She's now wearing like sneakers and a skirt that goes like past her knees yep, and is fully covered up.

Like, yeah, she's in her depression era.

She has clearly been punched in the soul and is recovering.

Yeah, and has to work with the fucking guy who punched her in the soul. So Daniel closes the door and he tries to apologize to her, and but Paul writes here and he's not wrong. It is a truly epically bad apology where he points out that Laura is younger and they've grown very close and that he.

Needs something extraordinary.

Look, he's being honest with her, but he still sucks right, Like he's like, look, I think you and I are people of a certain age who are looking for something more extraordinary before we settle down.

And I think Lara is the more extraordinary over you.

And I'm like, dude, just say I'm sorry, Like I always thought it was a casual thing, and I'm really sorry. I hurt you. The end, the end, the end.

I hope we can still work together and I will do everything I can to make this less awkward for you. Do you need to take some vacation? So Bridget scoffed at all of his like equivocating his nonsense, and she's like, how can you be so into her? You've just met her? How can she be this extraordinary love of your life? Then she realizes it, she goes like, wait a minute, you didn't just meet her. They've known each other for quite some time, and Bridget was actually the side piece.

Weird. Go get yourself a little spotted dick in England if you need it, and then come.

Back, and then come back come back to your to your meat loaf. I don't know, trying to think of your your hard pretzel.

What's like the most American.

Wod I could think of your apple pie?

Your apple pie? Ooh, actually spotted dick versus apple pie. I go with apple pie.

Yeah, yeah, I go.

I'm going with apple pie.

Slight spoilers for bakeoff for you. They make a spotted dick in bake off this year, and no part of it looks appetizing.

Haha.

I've seen actual dicks with spots that look more appetizing that dessert.

That's illegal in several countries. Paul, I'm so glad we live in the United States. So Daniel says, Okay, there's one more thing I have to tell you. Bridget, Laura and I are engaged.

Yeah boom. Bridget decides she has two choices. She can give up or she cannot give up, and she decides to not give up. I'm every woman comes on as we watch a montage a Bridget exercising, throwing out liquor bottles, throwing out her cigarettes, throwing out her self help books about pleasing men. There's a great title here.

Oh I have all the titles.

Oh please, do you want to hear them all?

So the books that she throws out are what men want, how men think, and how to make a man want what they think they don't want, and then she replaces them with how to get what you want and what you have, which is a weird title.

Life without men and women who love men are mad.

She generally goes around getting her groove back. This is a time lapse. This moves us probably into like the autumn.

Yeah, that's true, because we're gonna be on November fifth, Verie, Yeah, we're.

Gonna be on Bonfire Night in like two minutes. She ultimately winds up getting a new job on a morning TV show that she gets through brutal honesty. She tells the interviewer that she has to leave for old one because she shagged the boss, which is excellent. There's this cute little thing where she interviewed. She interviewed different places, and like the first one, she doesn't.

She has the same line in all three.

She's like, I'm deeply committed to sharing the news about like our global environment. Yeah, and then the guy it's like, what do you think of the El Nino phenomenon and she goes, actually, I think it's a blip.

Basically, Latin music's on its way out.

My favorite one. She goes to a kid's a kid's station, and they're like, you know, She's like, I'm really passionate about communicating with kids, and they go, oh, do you have any kids of your to go o christ No, yeah, excellent, But any case, she gets a job at this this morning TV show that the guy says, unfortunately, just so you know, no one gets sacked for shagging the boss here.

So in the book he's a coke head.

Oh, and like he's like the worst boss, but also kind of like she gets away with a lot because it's a total coke head.

She heads back to her to her publishing house, and she triumphantly quits, informing Daniel in front of the whole office that if keeping her current job means working within ten yards of him, she'd rather have a job wiping Sadam Hussein's ass.

Aries p e cit. Find out what it means simmy aries pct.

And the whole the whole office like applauds her as she walks out, triumphantly said to Aretha Franklin's respect, great.

Moment for Perpetua here where she yes, she actually says, if she backs down, I'm going to fire her bony little ass.

Thank you, Perpetua, Yeah for being totally spineless. Yes, like so basically Perpetua realized has known the entire time what's going on between Bridget and Daniel without anyone telling her. She's like, I got your back, Bridget, Like you stay, stay your course. This guy's fucked you over here. You deserve better.

Renees Ell Legger has now triumphantly quit a job in both of the movies we've done starring Renzell Legger. Oh no, not in Empire. Does she quit an Empire Records?

She doesn't quit Empire Records. No, no one quits. Why would you quit? It's the perfect job, perfect job?

What job do you think? She quits in Cold Mountain?

H splitter, failed midwife, just a bunch of failed midweh. You know what, After a few of these, I think this is on me. This one's on me, you guys.

Does she quit anything in Judy not drugs, Sanity.

In Chicago? She quits jazz.

In Chicago, she quits not shooting people.

Yeah, I'm not shooting someone for a change.

She must have quit a couple dance classes too, based on her performance. I will never let it go.

Oh, we'll never let it go. I look, I am a stand.

I love he gives a fantastic performance in Chicago. I love the acting. I'm perfectly happy with the singing. Watch the stage version of Hot Honey Rag, and then watch the movie version of Hot Honey Rag.

You are now comparing her to Gwen Verdon.

In my head, I was compared her to and Ranking, but yes, also Gwen Verdon. It is a dance show.

That is impossible. That's not fair.

So Bridget starts work at her new job at the at the station. Right throughout the movie, we should mention She's like, we hear the diary snippets that her diary snippets always begin with, like how much she weighs, how many cigarettes she's had, and how much outcohol she's had.

Yeah, and sometimes food stuff gets in there too.

At one point she says forty two cigarettes.

Yeah, in a day.

In a day.

There's one where after she leaves Daniels for the first time, she says, twenty cigarettes all post coital.

Yeah, And I'm like, what, how weren't you tired? Was it wasn't his jaw tired?

Does it no wonder? He broke up with her she's staying up his apartment. He doesn't seem to smoke. She's the only one in that relationship that smokes.

He must have like the minute she left, he opened all the windows and he's like, I can't have sex with this woman again. If I do, it has to be somewhere in a hotel because I cannot have the smell in my apartment anymore.

They're gonna have to stop making sequels soon because this character will be dead by the time she's sixty five from Emphysina. Can we talk briefly about what exactly her job is? Do you know?

Okay?

Because I don't. This makes no sense, Okay. Good.

Also, at the very beginning of the film, I just want to mention when she introduces her friends, right, Tom is a fair not fail. Tomas is very successful, one hit wonder. Jude works in finance. Chaza, the one that I modeled my life after is a journalist. Yeah, a hard hitting journalist.

And you are also a hard hitting journalist, never forget.

Likes to say fuck a lot. Both those things are exactly me.

Right, So her now, Bridget gets a job as a soft hitting journalist to be fair, like she's not she's supposedly not.

Supposed to go after big interviews.

Although hang on to your butts because something's coming right, Yeah, And so like they say, like, why is she on air talent? How did she go from being a marketing executive, not even executive, a marketing like this assistant or whatever coordinator at her company to be coming on air talent at a morning show?

Yeah?

Does England have seventy five morning shows? They just need blondes.

And also it feels like maybe there was a cut scene where like she was supposed to be the segment producer and then someone like called out sick because they're like rushing her to do all of these things and nothing's set up, nothing's prepared, yeah, which you would presume was actually her job as the producer. Yeah, but then there's there is another producer on the set, so that doesn't make sense, and the segment's a disaster.

The two times we see her working, she is on air talent. Yeah, Like that's her job, And I'm like, how.

Did she get this job? She's shagging this post too, did we skip something?

She's shagging this She's the coke kit.

So she's at work one day and she realizes that night, she looks at her her journal, and she realizes, oh shit, I have to have dinner with Magda and Jeremy.

And she goes.

The Only thing worse than spending time with the smug married couple is lots of smug married couples.

Right.

She goes to this dinner party, and to her dismay, it's literally like her and ten people, five of whom like all five couples.

Right. Can I make one small observation about this dinner party? Yeah, so presumptively all of these people are approximately Bridget's age, early thirties. Yeah, that's it. The dinner party they have laid out. It is candlelight on the table.

It's elegance.

There's a candelabra, it's plated appetizers. I throw a lot of dinner parties, I am now, as we have said, in my forties, I have never ever thrown a dinner party like this. This looks awful.

I have, and let me tell you it takes weeks ye a preparation to get like, to make it look like that.

And she was at work, which means this is a this is a this.

Is a midweek.

Yeah, fucking Candelabra lit dinner party for eleven people. Yeah, for presumably twelve. They might abridge it where she was still with Daniel. She's no longer, right.

I would also like all of our listeners to know that it is okay to dump friends who suck. I'm just gonna say that right now. You can dump friends who suck.

Yeah.

The only thing I will say about the scene, because I've seen it a lot, is her particular friends who invited her seem okay, fine, it's fine. Yeah, it's the it's their friends who suck. Another PSA for this episode, you do not have to go to your friends' parties if they're shittier.

Friends are there and you.

Can tell them that's why, and you absolutely.

Look, I'll get real with with you. Paul has a couple of duds in there, and I have told him and I have yet I have not seen those duds in several years. I have to assume those duds are still coming around once in a while. But he knows better than to invite me when those dunes are there.

Oh, I will tell you this is the true story. I will tell you Erica. Erica is a lovely, friendly, beautiful person. Having a dinner party. There are very few people in my life. If they're like, I do not like that person, I'll be like, done, you don't ask me this, you do not she does not ask of me.

Someone said something super sexist to me once like that one never. I never want to be sat next to that person again dinner.

And I was like, done, no problem, and bless you.

I have not seen that person in years.

Yeah, so all of my friends who haven't met Erica be aware.

Yeah one of you, one of you is a dud, I said, a couple. It's not true.

There really was good, just the one.

Everyone else is lovely.

It's you, you and my friend Adam that have carte blanche that when you're like I don't like that person, I'm like, I should never meet them because I'm meaner than both of you by far.

That's a really high bar, because Adam is the truly nicest person there's I'm scum compared to that.

So thank you. So okay.

So she arrives at this party and not only is she surrounded by quote unquote very happy couples, but there's a new couple in attendance.

Mark and Natasha are there? Cool?

Yeah, so everyone at the dinner is this, Paul writes here, and he's not wrong comically smug and awful about Bridget's singlehood.

It's not the movie's fault. It doesn't age. It doesn't age well.

It's just because it's not that it's it's offensive, not aging well, it's just outdated, not aging well. Where I feel like there was a genuine pressure of women in their thirties and the nineties when the book was resolutely to be married, to have kids, to like, like, if you're thirty three and single, what the fuck happened to you?

Like he repeatedly refers to herself as a spinster.

Yes, she was, Yeah, in a bad way.

I love the word spinster. I reclaim the word spinster,

Yeah, let me tell you, I saw this at a formative age. I saw this movie when I was like twenty twenty one years old, and it did not affect my Like I gotta be married by thirty, right, like or else what's gonna happen to me?

It's also interesting to think about, like they keep referring to Bridget as a career girl, but it doesn't really seem like Bridget is a career girl. Like she doesn't care about it. She didn't care about her job at the publishing house. She would have dumped it in a minute, in a minute. Yeah, Like, it's not like she's ambitious

Are you sure I'm writing this down? I shouldn't find that.

Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna cross out find a husband from my bucket list.

Had finally, finally, finally, No.

You're absolutely right, and like Shaza and Jude are working girls are like our career said, working girls, our career women, right, like, but Bridget is very Bridget and Tom are very much not.

Yeah, but Tom has an income. Tom has I don't know, like he has that Bill Niki song from Love actually under his belt.

I wonder what his one hit, Wonder was about.

I wonder.

I bet you he was like some like band Aid Live Aid, like like charity song for Africa that they play every year at Christmas.

Yeah, that tracks. That sounds right.

So Bridget handles it all with a plumb. They're all like, Bridget, why there's so many unmarried women over the age of thirty, And they all stare at her, and she's like, I don't know, can't help that. Underneath our clothes, our bodies are covered in scales. Like she's trying to make a joke out of it. Right, There's one particular couple that's really horrible to her.

They should be shot in the back of the head, so awful.

And she's and she like cuts them off, and she's like, how many marriages now end in divorce? Is it one in three or one and two? And Mark goes one in three and she's like, thank you. So she and Mark are on the same page.

After the dinner, she's leaving early, clearly before everyone else. She goes downstairs.

She puts on her coat, and Mark approaches her and apologizes for his past behavior. He's like, listen, I'm really sorry that I was unforgivably rude to you when I first met you at your mother's thing, right, and then I was wearing a reindeer jumper that my mother had bought me the night before.

It was a beautiful teal color.

They have money, Yeah, so their ugly Christmas weater is going to be better than our ugly Christmas weather.

It didn't look it.

And he's like, listen, I just want you to know the contrary to appearances, I'd like you you just as you are, And Bridget's stunned. She's like, wait, what you like me just as I am? No, that's the nicest thing anyone's literally ever said to me. And at that moment, unfortunately before it seems like he might ask her out Natasha comes downstairs. She goes, Mark, we've made excellent strides.

In the case.

Come along, and she like snaps at him and he gets embarrassed because his date is embarrassing.

Yeah, and he just runs.

He goes, well, good night, and he runs up stairs.

I love the idea that this this, this fleet of douche canoes that is somehow helping Mark and and Beth in. What we will find out is like a human rights case. Yeah, like someone thought outside the box, someone moved fast and broke things in the law, because that's how law works. All right. Bridget turns thirty three and assigned a big job at the TV station. She's interviewing two defendants in a political extradition case.

Obviously they get just one to Bridget. Obviously, Obviously she's literally never heard of these people.

Yeah, And basically it's a Kurdish freedom fighter and the British woman he's married to, and they want to extradite him to where he will most certainly be murdered. Yeah, and Bridgie goes, well, that's exciting. Look, it's a wrong com Let it go.

Let it go, Yeah, let it go. This is not how TV works. But who cares?

Who is how journalism works. Anything works.

Do not yes and yourself into this situation at your actual job, though, because you will not do well. So we cut to the courthouse where the case is taking place. Bridget steps into a local deli to pick up some cigarettes and she runs into Mark there. She goes, you like me as I am.

He goes, excuse me, She's like nothing.

Nothing. Her crew rushes in and they say we screwed up. The subjects are gone, and Brigitt goes, oh my god, did other people get to interview them. I'm going to be sacked, and Mark is there to save the day. He gets his big hero a moment. It turns out this big case and he's been working on with Natasha for all these months, was this one. He is the lawyer for the Kurdish freedom fighter and he gives Bridget the exclusive.

Yeah, the case went well, guy. The guy did not get extradited and or murdered. Yes, he's going to stay in England and be safe.

Yeah. And of course she nails it because she has done all the work that she needed to do prior to leading up to this.

She asks hard hitting questions in that interview. Honestly, the interview is a little bit charming.

Yeah, I did check. It appears that this man, based on his name, he hasn't a lot of credits based on his name, is actually of at least some sort of Middle Eastern descent.

Yeah, hopefully presumably Kurdish.

Yeah.

That night, it's her birthday. She's got this exclusive.

She is a hit.

She attempts to make dinner for her and her friends as her like great act of triumph? Right, why would you want to cook on your own birthday?

Is it actually her birthday?

It's her birthday, for her thirty third birthday. She invited her friends over and she's going to make them a four course luxurious dinner.

Oh, kids, you can't do that. What if you want to make a four course dinner I haven't done before? Email me. I can coach you through it.

No, girl, if it's your birthday and don't do it for your own correct and your three friends canonically make more money than you do. What you do is you say I've made us a reservation. Is the most expensive restaurant I can think of that I can't forward by myself. And you make them pay for your dinner? Yep, that's how you do your birthday done. So anyway, she attempts to make dinner.

It doesn't go well.

While she's doing that, her mother is calling her, and her mother is like, I kind of regret my relationship with Julian. Turns out he's kind of a shit. And we cut to Julian and he's getting a manicure on set and he yells. He yells at the manicures. He goes, oh careful, you ham fisted gunt. Excellent makes me laugh every time.

Her mother also says the sex is still surprising, and I'm like, I.

Don't still surprising.

The other morning I woke up and I felt the most enormous and Bridget cuts her off. By the way, it is Bridget's birthday and her mother calls to complain about her boyfriend, does not say happy birthday during the call, does not acknowledge that it's Bridge's birthday at all. So Bridget gets off the phone and the doorbell rings. She goes to the answer the door and she finds Mark there.

Of them connect.

They kind of make fun of her parents, of her mother really like it's very cute, very flirty. Bridget's friends arrive and they are shocked to find Mark there in a good way.

They're like, whoa, you're here.

No one's gonna be upset about seeing Colin first when they walk in.

And there was a scene earlier after he's like, I like you just the way you are.

They cut to her friends and they are dumbfounded that someone could be that nice to anyone just the way you are, not like with bigger tits or a smaller nose or a better personality or anything.

And now with all the improvements we prefer you with.

Yeah, like no, I think she's like talking about herself honestly.

The friend Jude and she's like no, just and they all they're like, fuck me, They've never heard.

Of anyone being that romantic.

The friends good naturedly choke down Bridget's horrible, horrible dinner.

She says that she reads the recipe, says, tie up the celery with string. She takes out this blue dyed twine. Twine. Yeah, basically she ties up leaks, not celery with it, to be clear, and then the blue dye seeps out into the broth. Hopefully she used broth not water, but who knows, And then she serves it. She's killing her friends.

Yeah, blue soup. They're doing that thing where they're eating and then they're going they don't know quite what they're tasting.

Yeah, that's cyanide.

After the dinner, her friends toast Bridget, and Tom says to Bridget, who cannot cook, but to whom we love just as she is, and the other two go just as she is. Mark figures out that Bridget has been talking about him to her friends. Yeah, and he locks eyes with Bridget. She locks eyes with Mark. Sparks sparks are flying. The friends all look at each other like, awa, we did this, We helped to.

Make this happen.

The door buzzes and Jude goes to retrieve Daniel mother fucker, who has appeared with a bottle of champagne, and he says, I thought you might be alone, and he pulls Bridget aside. He tells her he hasn't meanable to stop thinking about her.

Why would he think she was alone? Motherfucker?

What a cunt? Because he has no she has no friends. Of course, obviously once I left, you ceased to exist.

Yeah, I thought you'd be alone and depressed and killing yourself on your thirty third birthday.

You're without my dick.

Yeah.

He tells her that everything with Lara is over. Laura dumped him when she realized that he wasn't over Bridget, and before Bridget can respond, Mark interrupts and just says, I'm leaving. And Daniel smartily suggests they put their past behind him, and Mark just kind of rolls his eyes, sighs, and leaves.

Oh yeah.

Not only that.

Daniel puts his arm around Bridget and he's like, stay and have a drink with us. He's pussing him and Bridge, Yeah, much to Mark's dismay.

Right at one point, he's like he talks about her interview.

He's like, I'm so glad that that kid, that that that Kurdish bloke had got free whatever, he says, and it's like, okay, so you know she's had an amazing day at work and you still think she's sitting alone pining for you in her apartment.

Fuck you forever, dude.

There's something about toxic exes that they can sense it when you're happy. There's a shift, there's a shift in the ether, in the firmament, in the atmosphere. They smell it. They don't, they don't even know they're smelling it, but it will make them text you.

Excuse me, I have to go to Greg's house right now. Don't ask why. I sense he's happy. I must go murder his cat.

Excuse me, yes, I must. I must go say I've rethought everything and I'm actually in love with him. Ha ha ha. I must blow up this happiness.

So now we turn to my favorite scene in the movie. Paul tell me the scene isn't isn't the best? It's so goddamn good, it's funny.

Okay.

So Bridget turned to Daniel and she's like, why are you here?

What are you doing?

What's going on?

And he's like like, well, why was Mark Wenker Darcy here? And then Mark reappears and he goes, oh, great. He's back and Mark goes outside Cleaver.

He's like, should I bring my dueling pistols or my swords?

Like what the fuck?

And Mark is not kidding. He's like, meet me outside, yeah, and Daniel's like, all right, fine.

He rolls his eyes.

The original catch me outside girl was Mark Darcy and jumps diary.

He's like fine, and he goes outside and he's like, what are you gonna do? Hit me? And Mark's like yes, and he punches Daniel in the face twice.

Daniel is like ouch, ouch, okay, okay, okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. He pretends to give up, and then he grabs a garbage can lid behind his back and smashes Mark.

Over the head with it, right, which you could like legitimately hurt somebody like that. I mean you can do like punching them too, but like you're bringing in foreign metal objects and smashing it upside someone's head.

He's been sucker punched. He's not having it because he came down there. He's like, I'm not gonna fight you, and Mark's like, too bad, I'm fighting you. Punch it's raining men starts to play It's rain and.

Hallelujah, it's rain and man. Amen. Tom is so excited.

All of Bridget's friends, truly are so excited to see a real fight. These are upper middle class, like professional people. They have not seen a fight since middle school, and they're so excited to see one. I will admit I get very excited sometimes when I see a fight on the subway. It satisfies the bloodlust in me that I don't often get satisfied.

It brings you to your true happy place, which is the active gladiatorial arena in ancient Rome.

Yeah, it depends on the fight. Sometimes if it seems dangerous, that's no fun.

If it's two teenage girls, it is the greatest thing I've ever seen.

Because I know neither of them were gonna kill me. It's fine.

So Tom runs across the street to the Greek restaurant across the street. He opens the doors, the double doors, and he goes it's a fight.

It's a real a fight, and the waiters like a fight, a fight, and they all come outside to watch, right, and that's when we see Okay, little backstory. I read somewhere that Colin Firth and Hugh Grant were allowed to choreograph this fight themselves.

Oh they had to fight.

Choreographer help them so they didn't hurt each other, because the grief was we need you to fight, like two men who have literally never fought before. Would two like middle aged professional men, yeah, who don't know.

How to fight? And it is truly the funniest fight scene I've ever seen committed to film.

Yeah, I can't think of one better.

There is a moment where they're both just kind of kicking at each other with one foot because they don't know what to do. So the fight escalates and escalates. Eventually they go inside the Greek restaurant. Like one punches the other and he goes inside the restaurant and they have to stop for a minute to saying happy birthday to someone whose birthday cake is like is the Parthenon, And they're.

So proper they keep landing on people's tables and be like, I'm so sorry. I'll I'll pay pay, I'll pay for all of this, I'll pay for all of this.

And then ultimately the fight picks back up because Daniel grabs Mark by the torso and pushes him out.

The window of the restaurant.

Yeah, so they destroy the front of the restaurant, and they end up on the street, and Mark and Daniel are both like kind of tired and exhausted and hurting, and they're like, Okay, that's enough, that's enough, no more fighting. And then Daniel under his breath goes wanker, and Mark can't contain himself. He punches him one more time and punches him out, knocks Daniel out cold. Bridget scolds Mark,

So Daniel comes to He says they should go upstairs. He says, if I can't make it with you, I can't make it with anyone.

What it?

What is?

Wow?

You always dreamed having someone to say I'm such a mess. You're my only chance.

Yeah, You're the only person who'll put up with my bullshit.

Yeah. Bridget turns him down. She says, that's not good enough, and then she throws his own words back at him. I'm looking for something more extraordinary than that. Good for you, Bridget yep.

Exit Daniel from the film.

Yep, I will miss Daniel, but there are sequels, and like any good toxic X, he will feel that moment where she might be happy. Yeah, he will pop up again.

He's like, I think she's in Thailand.

I should go to her there, and we cut to Christmas right. Bridget is spending it with her father and Pamela comes home. Bridget kind of goes upstairs and she hides. She listens to her parents as they talk, and Pamela asks Colin if they can make another go of it, and Colin says he doesn't know, and Pamela starts to weep, and she says. He says, I'm joking you daft cow.

Now, what is this relationship, Paul? What is this relationship?

I think? Here's here's my theory. Here's my theory. They over peppered the sauce with Pamela because the whole concept of the movie is got fucking cheats on him and moves in with someone else that Colin genuinely loves Pamela and her complaints are legitimate. We don't see them. But she's like, he doesn't pay any attention to me anymore. Like it's a very common trope, right, like the marriage has gone stale, but we don't see him do that.

Honestly, it's these actors, because Jemma Jones too, Like on paper Pamela is the worst, but like she plays her in this way that's so sweet, yeah, and so like daffy, yeah, kind of like you're like, well, it's not her fault. She's just daffy, like she doesn't know what she's doing.

And she says, like, you used to be mad about me, you never paid any attention, Like she does explain to him what happened? Did we hear? Do that?

So I have no career, I have no life, I don't kid anymore to raise, like, what even do I do with myself?

Yeah? So they embrace and they get back together, and in the next day her parents are off to the Darcy's wedding anniversary party. So we're in between Christmas and New Year's yep. And Pamela points out with a twinkle in her eye to Bridget that Mark will be there and she has a hard time of year for him, after all, his wife left him around Christmas for the best man at his wedding who was his best friend at Cambridge Row. And everything falls into place, she said.

Honestly, I think the movie wanted a PG thirteen and that was the best they could do. They're like, we can't get more on a box in this and still still have a PG thirteen.

We can't go side saddle. We don't know how high bobs. Bridget says, Oh my god, I'm coming. I'm coming. Give me five minutes. I'm gonna get ready.

In case you're wondering that is Daniel. So Bridget shows up to the party looking the best she's ever looked in the whole movie. That black dress stunning, Yeah, love it. She spots Mark, and before he can flee, Bridget apologizes for the misunderstanding and the history with Daniel. She's like, listen, he lied to me about who you were. I'm so

You know what's interesting about this movie that just occurred to me and why I think it works better than some other romantic comedies. They're both deeply flawed, whereas lots of times with romantic comedies you get like Kookie flaws, like she's a club and he's uptight, you know, and like they they blow those flow those flaws up to not not to an unto a realistic place like he's really uptight and he's kind of an asshole.

Well yeah, she calls him haughty and arrogant in this scene, she's like, listen, I'd like you just the way you are, even though you're haughty and you're arrogant and your mom dresses you stupidly, and I really think you need to rethink the side your sideburns.

And how long they are.

So they go in for the toast and Mark's father announces that Mark has been offered a partnership in a New York law firm. His father says Mark will be going to New York. He'll be taking his law partner Natasha with him, and then he makes an inference that maybe someday they'll be partners in more than in.

Just law right, and then the band plays Dun Dun.

Everyone toasts and Bridget shouts no. Everyone looks at her and like, like the smooth operator that she always is, she says, it's just such a shame for England to lose such a great legal brain.

We should do this in an English accent to really submit the moment. It's just such a shine flying Land to lose such a legal brine.

It's really too bad. Adele isn't a movie star.

We see Mark arriving at JFK, which really has to just be Heathrow with the sign above that says welcome to JFK, because I can't believe they flew him all the way out here to kill that scene. Well, Bridget changes the title of her journal from Bridget Jones's Diary to Diary of Bridget Jones Colon, Spinster and Lunatic.

Hey gotta own it.

She's just humiligated herself in front of everyone she's ever grown up with. A few days past and her friends show up to cheer her up and take her to Paris for the weekend, help her forget all about Mark.

Stupid Darcy. Good friends, good friends.

They usher her out into the snow and they are good friends at the same time, toy like, come the fuck on, Bridget, hurry up. They all start to climb into the car while Bridget hunts for her keys to lock up the apartment, and as she's standing on the sidewalk, Mark appears behind Ooh.

He tells her he was in America but he forgot something in England. He'd forgotten to kiss her goodbye, and all across the land basements flooded simultaneous. Would she mind? He even asked for consent Erica.

Would you mind if I kissed you, hi, lie Dah.

Bridget says not really, and they go for the kiss, but before they do, Bridget asks if this means that he's not going to America, and he smiles and says not. Her friends are like, are you fucking coming or not? And she's like no, They're like yay, and they all drive away right, and she brings Mark upstairs. He goes to kiss her, but she excuses herself. She said, give me one second.

She rushes into her room to change in her underwear. She says this is an occasion for genuinely tiny knickers.

She's changing out of.

Her granny panties and into some sexy underwear. Meanwhile, Mark is browsing through her books magazine she told him to. He's not like snooping. She's like, read some magazines, enjoy yourself. And he finds her open diary just on the table, and there's all sorts of less than complimentary things written about him inside of it. He finds a passage where she's like, I'm glad his clever wife left him.

He's such an asshole.

Bridget suddenly hears the door slam and all she has on is like a tiny cameusol in those genuinely tiny nickers, which are, by the way, leopard print yep or no zebra print, zebra print.

Don't think leopard print, No, no, I believe zebra Okay, what if we just argue about this for forty five minutes.

Goddamn it, Erica, how dare you? Paul?

It is misogynistic of you to assume leopard print.

Learn your fucking African animals, you idiot.

So she opens the window and she sees Mark walking away, and she's like, Mark, what's happening?

And he ignores her, and she's like, what the fuck? So she turns around.

She sees the open diary on the kitchen table and goes, oh, no, he read the diary. She runs after him, and then two seconds later runs back into the apartment. She's like, oh, it's freezing, by the way, it's snowing. It's heavily snowing out right. She puts on some sneakers and a tiny cardigan over the cami. She is still pantiless, playing tiny tiny African themed nickers.

African theme definitely, and running.

Through the streets of the city.

Ain't no mountain high enough, Ain't no man no enough. She finds Mark coming out of a store. She stammers out in apology. She finally ends it with saying, for Christ's sake, it's only a diary, and Mark says, I know that, I'm just buying you a new one, and he holds out a new diary for Bridget. New start that you smile at each other. They embrace in the snow. They kiss, and Bridget pulls back and she says, good boys don't kiss like that, and Mark says, oh, yes,

Hot Colin Firth saying, oh, yes, they fucking do. Damn, damn, damn ma.

That's the end of the movie. Although there are the home videos the end that play over the credit.

The home videos of the end are excellent. It's it's set to me and missus Jones.

Yeah, And it's ostensibly like eight year old Mark and four year old Bridget at his at his birthday party, and they keep cutting to her and she's just eating an entire.

Quarter of the cake and then she finds a wine bottle and starts drinking out of.

It, very British. It's so cute, It's okay.

Then they keep cutting to Mark and he's like wearing a bow tie and very proper. Yeah, and Bridget's just like taking her clothes off and running around. It's adorable.

It's adorable. And that is the end of Bridget Jones's Diary, our very first New Year's film. I think I think so too.

Yeah, Happy New Year everyone.

Yeah, uh so, we are going to play a couple commercials. We be right back with our random observations and final rankings, and.

We're back, Paul, Paul, give me some random observations about Bridget Jones and SIY.

There is one line from this movie that has stayed with me for years, for the for the twenty years plus since I since I saw this, and it's it's a good it's just a good joke that her friends are coaching her and they're like, so you have to introduce people with interesting facts, so you know, you would say, like, so this is Erica, she enjoys podcasting and comes from Washington Heights. And this is Daniel, he enjoys publishing and comes.

All over your face. Yeah, it's a great joke.

It's a great joke.

It's so solid. Yeah, I don't know if we really like talked enough about how funny this movie.

This movie is funny.

It's so funny. There's a moment at the beginning of the movie where she's she's talking to Jude on the phone and Jude's crying and Bridget's like, no, it's not your fault, you're lovely.

It's vile Richard's fault. He's just a knobhead with no knob And then she looks up and Daniel's looking at her and trying to say but she goes is some people's opinions of cough coup, so good?

Did you? Speaking of the three friends, there is an insert shot of the three of them when it's at the end she's made the blue soup. They're all going to be dead in two weeks poisoning of the blue soup. But the she's with the two men, she's with Daniel and Mark, and the three of them are all smoking cigarettes and just like staring at her. Just a short insert shop absolutely glued to what's going to happen.

In drama, in Bridges Life.

Good friends, good for excellent friend, good friends.

They choked down that meal. I mean, I swear to God, I don't like that.

Is I wouldn't need it. That was a good friend. Absolutely not. You showed me something blue that's not supposed to be blue.

I honestly think I would do it. I think I just to not start anything. I just choked down the food for that one friend of mine who sucks except for that one guy who says something shitty to me once again.

Part of that scene where she's trying to impress the intellectuals, she's practicing smart conversation or quote unquote where she thinks a smart conversation. So she's she intends to ask people how they feel about the situation in Chechnya, and she's trying to make sure she pronounces Chechnya correctly. And then when she's at dinner with Daniel, she sits down at dinner with Daniel. She's trying to impress Daniel, and she goes.

So, how do you feel about that situation in Chechnia? Such a nightmare?

Right?

And he goes, oh, I couldn't give a fuck, Jones. I have to admit I do love Daniel.

Yeah, there are moments here. He is very fun.

I couldn't give a fuck.

Yeah what, I only have one more. It is a PSA for this episode. I believe I've said this before on the podcast, but I'm gonna say it again. Nobody should be fucking in front of a fireplace. They just shouldn't. It's too too hot. You will dehydrate, you will pass out. It's not I get it makes a pretty picture, Hollywood, I understand, I do. But you will be sweating. Whoever is on top will be pouring sweat Allah Patrick, ewing

That bearskin rug. No, that poor bear, that poor bear had to die for you to fuck on it.

That's not that's not bear.

That's all right. Peter should get involved. That's disgusting.

Don't fuck on bearskin rugs, you guys, it's disrespectful to that bear.

I just have one more tune. It's one of my favorite lines in the movie.

She's in bed with Daniel, her phone rings is there in her apartment and she answers the phone Bridget Jones.

One toon sex goddess with a very bad man between her thighs.

Mom, Hi, excellent, which is why you just shouldn't answer the phone like that. I mean, now we have caller ID.

Yeah now you yeah, you just never answered the phone. Erica viall but sex goddess. Oh hi Dad, Hi Dad?

What's going on?

What's going on? Oh no, oh no, I have to explain myself.

It's got awkward.

Eric. How should we rank? How should we rank Bridget Jones's diary? How about one to ten alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, peeping tom's, megalomaniac's, emotional fuck wits and or perverts.

Yes, there it is no more, no more.

That's so easy to say.

Emotional fuck wits.

Yeah good.

How about one to ten toxic exes.

If you don't smelling your happiness, if you don't mind.

If you don't mind, Paul, I need to go over to someone's house right now and tell them they're adopted. Their mother told me, but they never told them.

There's no joy in the air. Oh okay, quick, quick, send a dick pic. One to ten illegal sex acts which are really just nothing.

It's like sixty nine ing or just dry humping. Little reach around, little reach around that's illegal in a lot of places.

You guys.

One to ten and I'm going to give Paul the credit for this one ride in project is the greatest amusement park ride of all time.

I think you should do this one. It gave you so much joy. You open a Jane Austin theme park. I think it would be.

But is there not one already? Honestly, there's a whole movie called Austin Land.

It's true.

That is basically that premise. There should be like a teacup ride called Mister Bingley's House.

We're a tea at the Egg.

Yeah, we're all having tea.

There should be archery classes, Oh my god.

There should be archery classes. Yeah, night Lee's archery class.

Penmanship, Oh for sure.

Some Mansfield park. One that's just a little dark, don't bring your kids. That's the Haunted House.

And then at the end of every day, one lucky patron is gifted a millionaire to marry who's perfect in every one.

Perfect, Who's flawed, but yet somehow that makes them more perfect?

Yes, whose flaws only add to the perfection, Yeah, to the allure. Yeah, yeah, this one, this one, this one, Okay, all right, do you want to go first or should I go first?

I'll go first on this one.

Okay.

Look, I do think this film ages quite well.

I think the conversation around it to maybe tainted a lot of people's perceptions of what the film was, even though this is a woman who, like to her bones, wants to be like settled down and married and and all of that stuff.

Like that's a result of basing this on a novel that's two hundred years old.

Yeah, Like that's another like you have to have that plot point, right, That's like that's what she's driving towards, that's what she thinks she needs to drive toward. But I think there's a lot of self actualization that happens in the course of the movie where she realized she dumps Daniel. That's new, that's not from pride and prejudice, Like that character turns out to be a shithead and

Someone like you.

And so there are like updates to the to the original work that I think make it age very very well even today, even twenty five years later. No people of color, obviously sorry, and even gay representations. Is like one dude, it's Tom, Hi, Tom, just standing out in the background.

It is two thousand and one. Yeah, so that was enough.

Frankly, he hits on someone, he flirts with someone, So it's not like, you know, he's not like sexless or anything. The fat jokes are not jokes. What you remember, what you thought were coming were jokes, and they're not. They're her grappling with how she looks and her weight and thinking, I must improve myself. I will never get anyone if I don't improve myself. I must smoke less, I must drink less, I must work out more, I must be thin, I must be perfect.

And she she tries no matter.

The harder she tries, the worse it gets for her, and she actually ends up gaining weight throughout the movie, and I think, and Mark loves her anyway does not matter, and she realizes by the end that's the point, Like it doesn't.

It doesn't fucking matter. He looks me just as I am.

So I think it ages quite well despite some of its two thousand and one isms, because it does have quite a few two thousand and one isms.

I'm gonna give it a seven. Okay, I'm gonna give a seven out of ten.

Uh. Ride in Prejudices, I have not made Erica this happy maybe ever in our entire friendship.

That's so good, so funny what I've said.

Ride and Prejudices, where you have to go through the Mary Tunnel where it's just stopping to read a book for an hour, Mary the Best Bennett's sister.

I said what I said, Okay, how about.

You, Paul? Uh yeah, No, I think you're right like I do exactly what you said. With the perception of the movie has really made everyone think that it's all about a very petite Renee Zellwegger calling herself fat the whole time and everyone calling herself fat, and that being the jokes, which it's not. It just isn't like, that's not what the movie is actually saying or trying to do.

I don't have rose colored glasses, do I write? Like am I being crazy.

I don't think so. I don't think so. I think that it's I think that the two thousand and oneness of it comes out in this sense that I, as of viewer, fully believe that women of all shapes and sizes go through these kinds of struggles, which I think

I also want to point out that Daniel never calls her fat, never talks about her like he's into her from the jump like there's no he's not, like you be cuter if you lost five pounds, like he's deeply into her giant, lovely boobs.

The calls are definitely coming from inside the house or from other women. Yeah, Mark and Daniel have no issue with Bridget's weight. Yeah, Daniel may have an issue with her smoking, as we discussed. But so yeah, I think how well the movie is gonna age is kind of going to depend on your perception of that those two paths the movie can take. I do agree with you that I think the path the movie wants to take is the path path you're describing.

I mean, it's worth pointing out two female director writer.

Yeah, it has the backup, it has the receipts on it. So I think I think overall ages pretty well. There's no people of color. It's two thousand and one. Let's go people, Let's just do a little better than this, Like you're in London. I'm fine with the gay character. Like he gets he gets just as much, if not more than the other friends. And he's fun. He has a good time. As a couple of scenes, I'm going to give it a six. I'm going to give it

They have one that's Lady Catherine de Berg just telling everyone what garbage they are.

As we pass by Gwneth Paltrow. They would just film her in her home and they would just add a dress on her and post everything would work. Everything would just make sense. I suspect there are gonna be people who feel like the movie age is much worse. I think the biggest complaint I hear about this movie is it's about Renee Zelbecker being fat, and I don't think that's what the movie intends. I think that the talk around it at the time has colored a lot of

Let's get real earned, Yeah, fucking earned. Like the actors gained twenty pounds and everyone lost their shit.

Meanwhile, like actors gained fifty pounds and they're like, oh, what an amazing thing?

Is how great?

Yeah? Yeah, and this actress gained twenty pounds and they're like, well, is she gonna fit in the seat? How's she gonna go to the premiere?

Oh?

We have to butter the doors so she can get through, is christ?

So yeah, I'm gonna give it a six, a six out of ten. Ride in Prejudices and I don't feel the need to offer a palate cunser. I think this is this is kind of the first Bridget Jones. I think is kind of like movie classic. You should you should watch it? Yeah, rom com class agreed. Yeah, so so funny, excellent. So that is the end of our show. Everyone listening, can follow us on threads on Instagram. Due to the state of the world, I'm gonna start probably

That was a very very good impression of me going on I don't know it's hard. That aged Well is produced and edited by Paul Kola. We would like to thank Jojo, Steph, Mara, Sidney, Jessica, jan Kelly, Satoria, Rebecca, Daniel Marianne, Ka, Danielle, Sophie, all of our patrons who voted for Bridget Jones's diary over two hundred cigarettes.

Look, I'm not mad at it. Gonna be real with you, I fucking love this movie.

You guys, so thank you, and we apologize those two hundred cigarette stands. We feel you. Yeah, we've been you.

If we have been you, Yeah, thank you all for reaching out, letting us know what you want to hear. If you want to have a say in the topics we discussed. Just like those patrons who voted in that poll, join our Patreon. Every patron gets to vote in an exclusive monthly poll to determine one of our subjects. So head on over to patreon dot com slash that aged Well podcast to find out more.

Speaking of which, some tears, Erica, some tears on the Patreon come. Some tears, some tears come with thanks from a podcast character. And if you're on one of those tears and you haven't been thanked, yet. Just check your messages on patreons. You can request it so you can let us know how you would like to be thanked. Today we're hearing from and Okay, now it's not just one this time, but it's two characters. Ladies, gentlemen, everyone outside and beyond the binary, we have two Michael's.

Kane dueling, Michael Kaine's dueling.

Michael kaines, I'm Michael Kaine from the Muppet Christmas Carol.

Hello, I'm Michael Kaine from Day Rotten Scoundrels. And I'm Dunkirk.

No get out here, Dunkirk. We only got two Michael Kines to die.

Shut up, Dunkirk. No one wants you here.

We're here today to thank Grace.

Grace's mother says, Grace loves to listen to that aged well with her mother's love later here. That's awful nice, isn't it. Governor.

I don't think Michael Kaine, says Governor.

I think Michael Cocaine, says Governor. All the fucking toy.

You're Michael Cain. Don't sound educated.

My Michael Kain's from the street.

From the streets. Michael Cain from the streets.

I don't like your poshow Michael Kain.

From the streets to London. Michael Kaine, you're Michael Kain, is tossa your Michael Kain's a real wanker.

Oh you're Michaelkain. Can bugger off.

I've had enough of you, sir. Are you challenging me to a duel?

I am challenging you to a duel.

Let me get my white glove off. I'm smack you in the face with it.

Oh, don't cook. Come and bring me my pistol.

A pistol. You want to have a duel with a pistol with me?

Michael Kaine, Michael Kain, you in the face with my dueling pistols?

All right, well, thanks to Grace. I don't know if even one of us is going to survive this duel.

This due is gonna get ugly. I'll meet you at Hyde Park. My accent has changed.

Now.

I sound like a spice girl. This Michael Cocaine is a fucking spice girl.

It's kiny spice.

It's old spice.

Old. Oh you know what we had there, dueling, Michael Kaine. We had a cane mutiny. It is yes, oh, Erica. Any final thoughts on Bridget Jones's diary.

Do you smell that there's happiness in the air? Excuse me, I have to go change someone's passwords on all their accounts. We did dirt, didn't we We didn't do I was sure we've done that movie. In my head, we have done dirty rotten scoundrel.

I'm not gas lighting you. I promise we've done.

Dirty rod scoundrels. I have, okay, I worries of us doing dirty rotten scoundrels.

Whatever.

M