The films present viewers with a picture of a modern (albeit whacky) relationship, and with it a modern heroine. Her relationship with Mark has its ups and downs in the sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), and it seems that pregnancy will throw the couple through another few loops in the upcoming Bridget Jones’s Baby(2016). Once Elizabeth agrees to marry Darcy we know that she is going to live happily, and financially stably, ever after. Of course, in Jane Austen’s world, the story is over once the two love interests get together. Bridget, on the other hand, barely seems to take money into consideration with her suitors – she just wants to stop dating jerks.
Elizabeth Bennett may be against marriage for purely practical reasons, and she may believe herself immune to the pressures to marry a wealthy man, but it is worth noting that she seems to have a change of heart about Darcy after touring his lavish estate and that she makes a 180 after he saves the Bennett family honor by paying off her sister’s new husband.
Rather, it is to say that money is not the first thing on Bridget’s mind. That is not to say that women never marry for money, or that money never affects or determines romantic relationships. In Bridget Jones, the fight between Mark and Daniel (Hugh Grant) is over Daniel sleeping with Mark’s wife, leading to the couple’s divorce. In Pride and Prejudice, the fight between Elizabeth’s two suitors, Darcy and Wickham, is over a scheme to control Darcy’s family fortune. Significantly, though, in Bridget’s world, marriage is no longer primarily and explicitly about money, as it is in Elizabeth’s. Gemma Jones, Renée Zellweger and Colin Firth in “Bridget Jones’s Diary” (2001) Relatives continually ask her how her love life is, and later in the film a lover describes her and himself as “people of a certain age… looking for the moment to commit.” Bridget is constantly defined, by others and herself, by her age and relationship status. The film begins with Bridget telling us in a voice-over that “it all began on New Year’s day in my thirty-second year of being single.” Not only does she introduce her story by lamenting how long she has been single, but this is also how she tallies her life. Bennett), lest Bridget wind up a lonely old “spinster.” Apparently, less has changed in the world of courtship and marriage than we would like to imagine. However, she still faces as much social pressure to marry as Elizabeth, especially from her mother (not so different from Mrs. Bridget has a job and her own apartment – she is doing well on her own. In Bridget Jones’s Diary, set in the twenty-first century, the idea that a woman needs to marry (and marry for money) in order to survive feels outdated and sexist. Darcy is described as being both extremely handsome and extremely wealthy, and all of the romantic pairings in the story are judged by how economically advantageous they are – Lydia Bennett is judged harshly for running off with Wickham, who is essentially penniless, whereas Elizabeth is celebrated for getting engaged to Darcy, despite his unsavory attitude in the greater part of the novel.
Pride and Prejudice was a stealthy commentary about the social and political implications of marriage in Victorian England. Renée Zellweger and Colin Firth in “Bridget Jones’s Diary” (2001) However, the novel wasn’t all about romance, and neither is Bridget Jones.Ĭolin Firth and Jennifer Ehle in “Pride and Prejudice” (1995) On top of the shared Darcy name, it’s hardly coincidental that Firth also played Mr. The romance between Bridget (Zellweger) and Mark Darcy (Firth) closely parallels the one between Austen’s Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. This film’s abundance of cringe-worthy embarrassments involving undergarments would make any Victorian blush, but it just so happens that this “chick flick” staple is a modernization of Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride and Prejudice. She wants to lose weight, find a “nice sensible boyfriend” and stop dating “alcoholics, workaholics, commitment-phobics, peeping toms, megalomaniacs, emotional fuckwits, or perverts.” And because this is an early 2000’s British rom-com, this resolution leads Bridget to a love triangle between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. The film is about a British woman (played by the not-so-British Renée Zellweger) who has resolved to change herself for the better.
But what makes both stories so compelling is their complex and independent heroines who ignore society’s rules and try to find their own way.įew things come to mind that are further from formative British literature than Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001). Bridget Jones may not feel the same economic pressure to get married as Elizabeth Bennett, but she still faces great societal pressure to find the right guy. Quick Answer: Bridget Jones’s Diary is a modernization of Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride and Prejudice.