I’m a 30-something singleton in 2025 and Bridget Jones still reflects me in new film

Bridget Jones is back, 24 years after she first hit screens – and any tweaks are welcome (Picture: Jay Maidment/Universal Studios)

The most anticipated cinematic comeback of the year is already upon us as Renée Zellweger steps into the big, comfy pants of Bridget Jones once more in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.

Getting a new (fourth) Bridget Jones movie in 2025 does feel like an unexpected treat, given that author Helen Fielding’s creation first hit our screens in Bridget Jones’s Diary in 2001.

Over 20 years on and we can agree that was a different era, with some elements of her first film foray not ageing brilliantly – but accusations Bridget, as embodied by Zellweger so joyously, has been given some kind of ‘woke’ makeover are simply nonsense.

She’s just moved with the times – thanks to some small adjustments – and is all the better for it. That’s the truth.

By now we’ll likely all have seen the trailer for the film, and titbits from interviews, so it’s no surprise to say that this time Bridget is a 51-year-old mum of two young kids – and a widow following the death of her beloved Mark Darcy (Colin Firth).

(This also isn’t news to anyone who read Fielding’s Mad About the Boy novel, which was published in 2013.)

Many aspects of Bridget haven’t changed, but she is now a mother and widow (Renée Zellweger) (Picture: Jay Maidment/Universal Studios)

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This of course introduces an entirely new tone to proceedings because Bridget is grappling with two enormous challenges in grief and parenting, neither of which played into her famous life as a 30s singleton.

Those days had a lot more to do with puffing cigarettes, swigging white wine from the bottle, eating a full tub of Ben & Jerry’s – and shagging her thoroughly unsuitable (borderline sex-pest) boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant).

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Director Michael Morris has even described the upcoming film as ‘a comedy of grief’ that is ‘reimagining what Bridget is now’ – but that’s not anything to be scared of. In fact, it’s something to celebrate for our heroine as she continues to be relevant today.

I was introduced to Bridget by watching the first film as a child, and now I am that 30s singleton that Bridget was originally. As we watch her in her 50s, some have said she couldn’t possibly be relatable anymore with this new life she’s leading.

The character has always seemed relevant to me, first as a child and now as an adult (Picture: Moviestore/Rex/Shutterstock)

Others are moaning about the fact she doesn’t smoke, moved to Hampstead and embraces the outlook of a younger generation thanks to an age-gap love interest (Leo Woodall) and a Gen Z nanny (Nico Parker).

One major aspect of the Bridget films that has been binned is her calorie counting and obsession with her weight – as well as characters choosing to comment on it.

This is the element of the original Bridget films that has dated the most for sure, and the part that fed into a damaging narrative for young girls in the early 2000s; that they should define themselves by a certain number on the scales or a label.

While we still see frustrating opinions on bodies shared online in 2025, these kind of ideals have become much less of a stick with which to hit women over the head. It was also really the only Bridget-ism that struck me as ‘problematic’ ahead of the new movie.

One more dated aspect of Bridget’s narrative has been put to bed (Picture: Laurie Sparham/Universal/Studio Canal/Miramax/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock)

She’s a mother now, with different priorities and in a different time, but that hasn’t made her any less relatable to me.

While she’s likely to make us teary as she copes with the trauma of losing her partner and raising her children without him, she’s still the same Bridget she always was.

This Bridget models bedhead and PJs on the school run and embraces her Tinder era – as well as the 29-year-old toy boy Roxster (Woodall) that comes with it.

Her ‘rebrand’, as is referenced in the trailer, is all about her getting out there and enjoying sex and romance again, which sounds pretty similar to the exuberant, horny Bridget Jones that she was 24 years ago.

Also, Daniel Cleaver has still made the cut, with Grant making a triumphant return in the part, and sounding just as he always has with his description of our Bridge as a ‘very, very naughty nun’. Does that sound to you like the franchise has gone too woke?

Her ‘rebrand’ for 2025 simply takes in small adjustments, it’s not a woke makeover (Picture: Jay Maidment/Universal Studios)

Intriguingly, the Four Weddings and a Funeral star has also suggested a contextual backstory to the back-from-the-dead Cleaver which might – shock! horror! apparently – go a little way to explain his attitude and approach in a refreshing way for fans in 2025.

According to Grant, the lothario did settle down and become a parent with a woman from whom he’s now estranged ’cause he shags her sister, and he hasn’t seen his son in 10 years’.

‘I think if he had just been walking up and down Kings Road chatting up girls for 24 years, it would have been hard to endure him,’ the star pointed out to Vanity Fair – and he has a point.

We still have fan-favourite Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) to enjoy in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (Picture: Moviestore/Rex/Shutterstock)

But that’s not wokeness gone too far – that’s ensuring a classic rom-com character just has a little more depth about him for another go around the block.

This Bridget is also seen loudly announcing her ‘utterly mind-blowing sex’ to an entire studio audience (unwittingly) at work, in just the kind of embarrassing situation she’s always managed to brush off with her positive attitude (remember her unknowingly slagging off Mark and his epic Christmas jumper in front of him?).

And he still liked her ‘just as you are’. And reader, she hasn’t really changed.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is in UK cinemas now.

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