Bridget Jone's Diary Opening Analysis ☮ ☮ ☮

"Bridget Jones's Diary"(2001) is a romantic comedy following a 30 something lonely woman, Bridget,living in London, caught in a love triangle between her boss, Daniel, and mysterious but somewhat rude barrister,Mark, causing a tough decision for Bridget, Though her clumsiness and loveable traits make the course of her choice lighthearted and humorous.


The film opens from a black fading to colour showing a medium shot of a blonde woman walking through what seems to be a heavy fall of snow, setting the time of year to be in winter and also presumably in a colder country, also what seems to be England as we see in the background a traditional London black cab. We hear a narrative immediately, which is often used in romance films, The narrator is a woman which suggests to the audience that this is the woman in focus, she lays the scene as new years day and sets some key facts to show that it is a romance film by saying that she is single and that she is attending her mother's annual turkey curry buffet, and that her mother always tries to set her up with a "bore", suggesting that the mother is controlling in the woman's love life. We then see an empty and quiet seeming street, with the woman emerging from a cab, approaching her mothers house, where we see a rather large house with fancy bushes at the front shaped into two swans forming a love heart, showing a sense of wealth and also again referencing the genre of film and possibly the mothers interest in peoples love lives.

The camera then jump cuts to the woman with a medium close up over the shoulder shot, showing her mother at the front door saying "there you are dumpling", assuming the audience to think that the mother is caring for her daughter, we also see that the mother is wearing a brightly coloured dress showing that she has a bright personality and is a likeable character, the dress also has long sleeves and is mid length showing that she is quite conservative meaning that she is old fashioned. We also see a high angled shot inside of the home from the top of the staircase showing the daughter cross the threshold, which again comes across as very wealthy looking due to the cleanliness and fancy looking furnishings. The mother then reveals to Bridget(The blonde haired woman) a barrister "Mark" is going to be at the party and hints to her that she is going to try to set her up with him, which doesn't come as a shock to her, suggesting to the audience her mother has done this on plenty of occasions, and also suggests to them that this means that Bridget has been single for a long time as well.

Bridget's mother then tells her she has to go change as she looks like she "just walked out of aushwitgz", showing again an old fashioned and somewhat harsh sense of humour you get with older people, we also get from this that even with Bridget being a grown woman her mother still controls Bridget. Bridget then emerges from around the corner in a close up where we see her wearing a bright red blouse with a a flower embroiled red jacket, like her mother's sense of style, showing that her mother believes she is the right image to attract a man and wants Bridget to follow in her footsteps. Though Bridget looks awkward and nervous due to her attire and says in her narrative that she was "wearing a carpet", With this we ear the song "Cant Take My Eyes Off Of You", almost mocking Bridget because of her outfit making the audience see the humorous side of it. As Bridget walks in with her "pervy" uncle, we see in the background a christmas tree, therefore confirming to the audience that it is christmas time.

We then see the typical cliche of the back of the possible love interest where Bridget's narrative states that "maybe mum got it right" building the audiences anticipation to see what he looks like and if it will be a love at first sight moment. As he turns around we see it occur in slow motion with a slow love type song to show that he is the "dreamy" character of the film. With Bridget's mother escorting her over to mark like a child you see in Bridget's face a look of awkwardness and embarrassment as you see her trying to avoid facing the man and looking in opposite directions, once her mother leaves to leave the two to chat Bridget starts to face mark and try to make joking conversation, although mark seems irritated and comes across to the audience as rude and impolite, as he seems to be looking in other directions not smiling at  her and also standing rather far away from Bridget, coming across as snobby conforming to his stereotype of being a posh, rude character.

As the two talk in a medium shot we are shown that the two are at completely different roles, as Bridget is seen smoking and wobbling from her drink (alcohol), with Mark seemingly looking down on Bridget in disgust as she makes a fool of herself and seems to patronisingly answer all of her questions, making the audience almost dislike mark, as Bridget would be seen as a working class "normal" girl, which is the majority of the audience that would watch the film. Making an excuse to leave, mark walks off without saying goodbye, leaving Bridget unaware of his rudeness conforming to her stereotype of being a "dumb blonde".

The camera then cuts to a medium shot of mark talking to an older woman (presumably his mother) where she says "apparently she lives right around the corner from you", making the audience believe the due to the previous scene that the woman is talking about Bridget, Where we see Bridget in the background going for food at the buffet. Mark rudely talks about Bridget saying that he doesn't want
to go on date with someone who "smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish and dresses like her mother", making the audience completely dislike mark at this moment, and sympathise with Bridget, who pretends she didn't hear mark while she puts on a brave face and is seen walking away in a  close up falsely smiling.

The camera then fades and shows a tall building (presumably Bridget's home) In a long shot, where we see her in her red pyjamas (the colour of lust, but is seen in an ironic way as Bridget is being presented as a lonely, clumsy singleton) on a sofa with a bottle of wine smoking , showing perhaps that what mark has said truly has upset her, which is then confirmed when we see a presumably drunken Bridget lip syncing to "All By Myself", setting a comedic and dramatic mood, leaving the audience hoping Bridget will get a boyfriend through the course of the film.


Bridget jones's Diary is one of the few romantic comedy films that I actually enjoy as it isn't the typical rom com and actually has humorous comedic value featured in the film.