Bridget Jones is one of the most iconic characters of the early 2000s, and although many comedies filmed in that era are very dated, the Bridget Jones movies are still mostly hilarious. The Bridget Jones movies make some changes to the books that they are based on, but they all follow the titular character who is looking for love. Bridget Jones is played by Renée Zellweger, who adopted a convincing English accent to play the character. Her transformation and comic timing make the Bridget Jones series some of Renée Zellweger’s best movies, filled with moments that still hold up today.
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Many scenes in early 2000s comedies have not aged well, and the Bridget Jones movies have their share of dated moments. The jokes about Bridget’s weight and the inherent sexism in her profession would not hold up today. However, most of the jokes in the Bridget Jones movies have aged well, and Bridget Jones has been such a popular character that a fourth Bridget Jones book adaptation, Mad About The Boy, has been filmed. The original movies may contain some dated running gags, but there are still many scenes that are hilarious and hold up today.
10 Bridget Messes Up A Speech At An Important Event
Bridget Jones Is A Terrible Public Speaker
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In Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget is asked to speak at an event but goes to pieces when she can’t get the microphone to work. Things go from bad to worse when she tries to please the famous authors in the audience by crediting their work as “not bad” in her speech. Bridget Jones‘ funniest scenes often involve the titular character spectacularly messing up a seemingly simple task, and this is a perfect example, as Bridget was only supposed to introduce a colleague in one sentence, but also forgot his name.
Bridget’s terrible public speaking skills are a recurring joke in the movies, as this is the first of many speeches that she takes off-script.
The scene is the worst-case scenario for anyone embarrassed by public speaking, as Bridget is in front of accomplished people, her boss, her future love interest, and the guest of honor. Everything Bridget says makes the situation worse, and it’s such a funny scene because it is so mortifying. Bridget’s terrible public speaking skills are a recurring joke in the movies, as this is the first of many speeches that she takes off-script.
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9 Bridget Answers The Phone While She’s In Bed With Daniel
Bridget Jones’s Mother Calls At A Bad Moment
Bridget Jones is lovable because she is a flawed character, and one of her worst and funniest flaws is not knowing her audience. In Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget begins a short-lived relationship with the terrible Daniel Cleaver, played by Hugh Grant in one of his best villain performances. During an intimate moment with him, Bridget answers the phone, and her assumption that it is her friend calling leads to a low-stakes but very embarrassing moment that many people can relate to.
Bridget answers the phone while she’s in bed with Daniel, candidly sharing her situation before discovering that it is her mother calling. While many people would now make a similar mistake by sending an email to the wrong person rather than answering the phone, this is still funny as it is such a common mistake to make. To be fair to Bridget’s mother, who is an oversharer herself, she either doesn’t hear what Bridget says or pretends that she doesn’t.
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8 Bridget Tries To Mime In A Pharmacy
Bridget Jones Struggles To Explain What She Needs
Bridget is in the worst location possible when she realizes that she needs a pregnancy test in The Edge of Reason. She is halfway up a mountain, pretending that she can ski. A stroke of luck means that Bridget’s legendary clumsiness sends her sliding down the mountain and right into a pharmacy. The scene is doubly funny because of the exaggerated slapstick comedy and the realistic problem that Bridget has in the pharmacy.
The scenes that have remained hilarious involve relatable scenarios. Many people who have traveled have encountered a funny or confusing language barrier, and this scene plays out with Bridget trying and failing to mime the words “pregnancy test.”Bridget Jones is a surprisingly nostalgic romantic comedy, as most people would now use a translation app to avoid this situation. While the scene has aged, it has become a moment of nostalgia, unlike the early 2000s body comment jokes.
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7 Bridget Stumbles Into The Wrong Yurt
This Mistake In The Dark Starts The Events Of Bridget Jones’s Baby
At the very beginning of Bridget Jones’s Baby, Bridget is at a loud and muddy music festival when she drunkenly stumbles into the wrong yurt. This is another classic case of Bridget not knowing her audience, as she believes that she is speaking to her friend when she starts talking about what she wants. Bridget is complaining about being single and wanting to have some fun with a man, and when the light turns on, her wish appears to be granted.
Related Bridget Jones Recap: 8 Things To Remember Before Mad About The Boy
As the release of “Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy” approaches, fans are remembering the events of the first several movies in the franchise.
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It turns out that the disheveled Bridget is actually in the wrong yurt, which belongs to Jack, played by Patrick Dempsey. The scene is especially ridiculous because Bridget first accuses Jack of being in her yurt, despite hers being a much less stylish one. This scene combines Bridget’s luck with comedy, as Bridget gets the night of fun she wants, but the festival looks very different in the morning. Bridget leaving a boot behind in the mud is a final visual gag that many festival-goers will identify with.
6 The Iconic Bridget Jones Pants
Bridget Has Not Dressed For The Occasion
Bridget can’t decide between a pair of small and stylish underpants and some more comfortable but less attractive ones. In the most iconic scene in Bridget Jones’s Diary, she picks the huge beige stretchy pair and only remembers this when she is getting undressed with Daniel for the first time. The “big pants” scene is one of the funniest in the Bridget Jones series, and big comfy underpants are still associated with the character.
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When Daniel undresses Bridget, describing her ”
silly little boots and silly little dress
,” he discovers the giant beige pants just as she remembers them.
His surprise is what makes the scene so funny, with his line being one of the funniest quotes in the Bridget Jones series. Many of the outdated jokes in Bridget Jones concern her fear of gaining weight, but this scene is focused on the surprisingly mismatched pants rather than Bridget’s size. This, fortunately, allows it to still hold up today.
5 Bridget Tries To Flirt With Mark Over Speakerphone
The Edge Of Reason Repeats Bridget Jones’s Most Common Gag
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Bridget Jones often forgets to check who is listening when she’s on the phone, and each of the Bridget Jones movies features a version of this gag at least once. In Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Bridget calls Mark Darcy, who she is dating, while he is at work. When Bridget compliments his body, Mark reveals that he is in a meeting with some important clients and that she’s on speakerphone.
Everyone has said something out loud that they wish they hadn’t, which makes Bridget’s tendency to do it very relatable. The Bridget Jones movies are funniest when they show these everyday moments dialed up for maximum embarrassment, and as they often repeat their best gags, this predictability can add to the humor when it isn’t overused. The audience knows what’s coming and is waiting for the twist – that somebody important is listening.
4 The Bunny Girl Outfit
This Scene Was A Common Early 2000s Comedy Trope
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The modern costumes make it easy to forget that Bridget Jones is an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. In one of the most well-known scenes in Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget arrives at a canceled costume party dressed as a Playboy bunny girl. Bridget looks fantastic but she’s out of place, and everyone is staring, including the judgmental Mark Darcy and his stylish girlfriend, Natasha. Bridget calmly asks what happened, while her horrified internal monologue makes the scene extra hilarious.
Related 10 Iconic Rom-Com Scenes That Didn’t Age Well
While romantic comedies are one of the most popular film genres with audiences, they’re not perfect, and some iconic scenes haven’t aged very well.
This scene is so famous that it is a trope of early 2000s comedy, right down to the bunny costume. In Mean Girls, Cady arrives at a Halloween party expecting to fit in with her scary costume, but everyone else is dressed to impress, with the “queen bee” Regina George in a bunny outfit. Legally Blonde‘s Elle Woods arrives at an event that she was told was a costume party, but discovers that it isn’t, while also dressed as a bunny girl. By strange coincidence, Legally Blonde and Bridget Jones came out in the same year.
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3 Dr Rawlings Steals The Show
Emma Thompson Plays A Gynecologist in Bridget Jones’s Baby
Emma Thompson plays Bridget Jones’ gynecologist in Bridget Jones’s Baby, and her hilarious advice and no-nonsense support make her one of the best and most likable characters in the Bridget Jones series. This small part is one of Emma Thompson’s funniest roles because she behaves in a way that no real medical professional would, like re-enacting Groundhog Day for each scan with the potential fathers, and sending both men out of the room when Bridget goes into labor.
While Bridget is asking for all the gas, air, and drugs that can help her through her labor, Jack tells her to “think away the pain,” and the scene is ultimately satisfying in a hilarious way. Bridget’s flailing arm ends up punching Jack, and Mark Darcy calmly tells him to think away the pain as Dr Rawlings’ incredulous expression says what most of the audience is likely thinking.
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2 Daniel And Mark Chase Each Other In A Fountain
Round Two Of Their Punch-Up Shows That Neither Man Can Fight
Daniel Cleaver and Mark Darcy had a fistfight in Bridget Jones’s Diary, but when they go back for round two in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, it is even funnier. The scene is less violent than the one in the original movie, as the pair spend most of the time wrestling, chasing each other, falling over, and mis-aiming kicks. This failure to have a proper fight makes the scene hilarious, and the soundtrack adds to the ludicrous scene.
Neither fight is supposed to be taken too seriously by the audience, as both men have already been shown to be more angry than dangerous.
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The fight in Bridget Jones’s Diary was set to the soundtrack of “It’s Raining Men”, while The Edge of Reason‘s fountain fight was set to “I Believe In A Thing Called Love”. Neither fight is supposed to be taken too seriously by the audience, as both men have already been shown to be more angry than dangerous. The music, which doesn’t fit the scene, makes the payoff even funnier as Daniel and Mark fall into the fountain as expected.
1 Bridget Invites Her Friends For A Fancy Dinner But Makes Blue Soup
Bridget Jones Finds That She Cannot Cook
When Bridget has her friends round for dinner, Tom raises a toast “to Bridget, who cannot cook, but who we love just as she is.” The scene is one of the most unexpectedly heartwarming in the Bridget Jones movies, as she is surrounded by people who love her for all her faults, but the scenes leading up to it are hilarious. Bridget, having finally had some confidence-boosting professional success, gets overconfident about her cooking skills.
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Bridget’s three-course meal idea quickly falls apart as the blender breaks, getting her mixture all over her. This is the moment that Mark Darcy arrives. This may not be the most romantic scene in the Bridget Jones movies, but it reveals their changing relationship as she invites him to stay, only to discover that the soup has turned blue. Only Bridget Jones could manage to make blue soup, and while many of the more outdated jokes in the movies have the audience laughing at her, this scene is meant to have the audience laughing with her, especially the viewers who also cannot cook.
Bridget Jones
Movie(s) Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) , Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason , Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016) , Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy First Film Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) Cast Renée Zellweger , Colin Firth , Hugh Grant , Jim Broadbent , Gemma Jones , Sally Phillips , Shirley Henderson , James Callis , Patrick Dempsey , Sarah Solemani , Emma Thompson Character(s) Bridget Jones , Mark Darcy , Daniel Cleaver , Shazza , Jude (Bridget Jones) , Tom (Bridget Jones) , Jack Qwant , Miranda (Bridget Jones) , Dr. Rawlings
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