Bridget Jones’s Baby review by Rashid Irani: Comic con

BRIDGET JONES’S BABY

Direction: Sharon Maguire

Actors: Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Patrick Dempsey, Emma Thompson

Rating: 1 / 5

Minutes into the third installment of the chick flick series, the clichés have already begun to pile up.

Now 43, the mishap-prone singleton (Renee Zellweger, reprising her role from the first two outings) is still searching for Mr Right.

Of the two former men in her life, one (portrait of Hugh Grant, ahem!) has died, and the other (Colin Firth) has gone off and married someone else.

As if on cue, her love life takes a turn, but the newest ‘happily ever after’ gradually begins to lose its lustre too.

After leaping into the arms (and bed) of her now divorced ex-suitor, the saucy British TV producer also has a fling with a dashing American billionaire (Patrick Dempsey).

What next? A pregnancy, of course. To exacerbate her dilemma, she is not even sure which of the two lovers is the father of her child.

Read: Colin Firth and Patrick Dempsey discuss their on-set bromance

A monotonous series of vacillations ensues, with the mother-to-be and her two paramours indulging in all manner of dumbed-down screwball antics.

The dry script, co-written by Emma Thompson, who also features as the deadpan gynaecologist, drains the film of what little potential there might have been for frothy comedy.

A subplot involving Bridget’s clueless but supportive parents (Jim Broadbent-Gemma Jones) amounts to nought.

Renee Zellweger continues to ooze oodles of charm, but this tepid threquel confirms the concern expressed at one point by her character. After 15 years, is Bridget Jones just past the sell-by date?

Watch the trailer for Bridget Jones’s Baby