★★★★

Oh my, how time flies. Nine years have passed since our last dip into the ongoing diary of Bridget Jones. Said film saw the beloved Brit – invention of Helen Fielding, masterpiece of Renée Zellweger – give birth to a son of two potential fathers. That neither remain a feature of Bridget’s life, despite co-parenting promise, speaks something to the inconsequentiality of film three. The same cannot be said of four, an altogether more consequential – dare we say weighty? – entry. Mad About the Boy pairs Bridget’s jolly brand of japery with a greater ear for sentiment and the nuances of time. Certainly, it mediates rather nicely on what it means to navigate the world as a woman of a certain age…whatever that means in the twenty-first century.