Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

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This may be the second time I've ever suggested that the casting director should get an award.

The first time was The World According to Garp which cast three actors with no movie careers to speak of. All three performed beautifully, all three roles became part of the lore of cinema history and all three people became lasting stars. (Glenn Close, Robin Williams, John Lithgow)

To cast three virtual unknowns so perfectly was sheer genius. (Williams was not an unknown, but was not considered an actor.) But I think what the casting director did here was beyond genius and into the realm of some unexplainable extra-sensory parapsychological phenomena.

Bridget Jones's Diary is a beloved book about a 32 year old woman fighting the traditional battles of singlehood. Bridget is overweight, British, busty, smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, and flirts with all the wrong men.

Now who would you cast for such a role - Kate Winslet seem logical? Kate would have sprung to my mind first, but I suppose plenty of top British actresses might have assayed the role. So who did they cast? Rene Zellweger.

If you had told me that in advance, I would hope not to have had a drink in my mouth at the time. Zellweger is not British, is thin, is from Texas, has no breasts and scrawny chicken legs. Know what? It didn't matter. Zellweger did a Robert Deniro. She gained a ton of weight, and performed a lot of the film in her underwear, with all that fat hanging out.

She put on the accent with the weight, and seemed to me to deliver a memorable rendering of this character. I'll leave it to you Brits to render the verdict on her accent, and I'll have to defer to those of you who have read the book to evaluate the authenticity of her portrayal compared to the author's intentions.

I don't have the ear for English dialects that I have for American, but I think she delivered some Americanization of the sounds. Frankly, I don't care that much about these things because, to quote the immortal bard known as "Hunter" - it works for me.

For you anal-retentives, just pretend she spent an internship in L.A., and picked up some Americanisms. When I watched Cider House Rules, I just said to myself - OK, Michael Caine is obviously not really from Maine, but that doesn't really matter, does it? I'll just write my own back-story, pretend he's originally from Duluth, and enjoy the film.

Whatever Zellweger delivered by the standards of the book and the language, she delivered a charming, real, fumbling, often deceived but persevering person. She delivered the person that most of us are -clumsy, dreaming, undisciplined, but trying hard to make some sense out of life. Zellweger is kind of the female version of Matthew Broderick.

They are who we really are. Oh, we wish we were Nicole Kidman and George Clooney, but we're not, and Zellweger is able to collect what we really are and play it back without having us cringe in embarrassment more than we're supposed to.

Zellweger nailed this puppy, and if it isn't the way the author intended it, the author ought to give some thought to a rewrite. She's supported ably by the two men who play two boyfriends in the film. There's her suave, empty, charismatic, insincere, floppy haired boss. (Guess who? Hint: this role was cast more predictably.) And then there's her stiff, sincere, uncharismatic, intelligent but invariably tongue-tied former childhood friend. (Colin Firth).

Hugh Grant brings to the role his one unique talent - he's the only actor in the world who always seems to be saying something clever. In fact, Hugh never has said anything clever that I can recall, but he delivers every single line as if thinking to himself "look at me, I am SO clever, and so adorable".

In this case, Hugh was also cast for the one other thing he does best on screen - insincerity - so the role gives him a chance to shine, and he does well. But it's Bridget's diary, not Hugh's and it's her picture as well. It's a romantic comedy that manages to deliver some fairly contrived plot turns without seeming untruthful, and to deliver a happy ending that is a bit zany.

But the happiness is tentative - as happiness always is for us in reality. Not my kind of film, but I enjoyed it.

Nudity Report: Zellweger shows lots of overripe cleavage, hefty thighs, and saggy bum (which was what she was supposed to do for the role). Brief nudity from unknowns.

Critics Vote: Roger Ebert 3.5/4, Berardinelli 3.5/4, BBC 4/5, Apollo 84

IMDB Summary: 7.9 out of 10

Box Office: NA

DVD Info: NA

Written by: Scoopy …Scoopy.net