Review: 'Bridget Jones's Baby' Is 'Absurd' but Worthwhile

— -- Starring Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, and Patrick Dempsey

Rated R

Three-and-a-half out of five stars

In this third installment of the "Bridget Jones" franchise -- a movie nobody necessarily asked for, especially since the last movie wasn’t particularly well received -- Bridget is once again single. She’s now a seasoned news producer, and at 43, considerably older than her female co-workers. In fact, when one of her co-workers refers to her as a MILF, Bridget corrects her, stating that she’s really a “spinster,” making her a “SPILF.”

Of course, the truth is oft spoken in jest: Bridget is feeling a bit spinster-y so, her good friend Miranda (Sarah Solemani) takes her to a music festival with the goal of sleeping with the first guy she talks to. That turns out to be McDreamy himself: Patrick Dempsey, who plays an internet mogul named Jack. While they indeed do the deed, Bridget has no idea who Jack really is and Jack doesn’t know Bridget’s last name. She leaves in the morning before he ever gets a chance to say goodbye.

A week later, Bridget is at a christening and guess who’s also on the guest list? Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy, and he's just as uptight and square as ever… which means ... they sleep together. Then guess what happens?

Bridget discovers she's pregnant but doesn’t know who the daddy is!

Instead of telling Mark and Jack that each of them might be the father, she lets them both believe that they are actually the father. The scene in which she finally comes clean to both of them at the same time is a meticulous piece of comedy writing, acting and directing. It is one of many scenes that reminds us why Zellweger is an Oscar-winning actress.

Let’s not kid ourselves, though; as funny as this movie is, it’s equally as predictable. It’s also, on many levels, absurd. Absolutely nothing rings true regarding Bridget’s tenure as a news talk show producer, for example. I could give you an itemized list of other fantastical and contrived situations in the film that ask the viewer to go way beyond simple suspension of disbelief.

The fact is, "Bridget Jones’s Baby" is best summed up in one scene: Following the positive result of her pregnancy test, Bridget visits with a doctor (Emma Thompson), and tries to trick her into revealing her date of conception -- without revealing that she slept with two different men a week apart. The comedic timing between the two veteran actresses is brilliant. Furthermore, when the doctor refers to Bridget, 43, as a “geriatric” mother, the look on Renee Zellweger’s face is priceless. The conversation and manner in which this news delivered is absurd, but so is everything else that happens in this movie. Still, we'll go along with it because Zellweger and friends are charming and, well, human.