In the first three Bridget Jones films, the eponymous chaotic heroine has been on a seemingly endless quest to not be single. We have watched her win, lose and secure again the heart of buttoned-up human rights lawyer Mark Darcy. Sadly, the cycle must continue, and in the newest and last instalment, Mad About the Boy, she loses him all over again.
The brand of romantic comedy Bridget Jones belongs to, which came about in the late 1990s and early 2000s, thrives on the chaos of single life, not “smug married” life. Bridget works best when she is self-deprecating, single and searching.
Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996) has been, and continues to be, described as the “urtext” of chick lit – a defining novel from which others in the genre descend.
