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Bridget Jones
Mad about the Boy

Director – Michael Morris – 2025 – UK – Cert. 15 – 124m

*****

Following the death of her husband, Bridget must carry on raising her kids even as she restarts her career and attempts to find love, sex and romance once again – out in UK cinemas on Thursday, February 13th

The character of Bridget Jones first burst onto cinema screens in Bridget Jones’s Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001) in what turned out to be a hugely successful adaptation of a hugely successful publishing phenomenon. The book spawned three more volumes, and the film spawned adaptations of them. For reasons best known to the producers, they skipped the third published book Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy to film the fourth one, Bridget Jones’ Baby, as the third movie.

The reason may be that Mad about the Boy is set following the death of the heroine’s beloved husband, a top human rights lawyer, making her not the single woman of the first film, but a widow navigating not just life, with all its ups and downs, but grief, which doesn’t sound like a great premise for a comedy. The script, co-written like its three predecessors by author Helen Felding, doesn’t shirk this difficult subject either.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Operation Mincemeat

Director – John Madden – 2021 – UK – Cert. 12a – 127m

*****

The British WW2 deception involving a corpse and fake documents to make Germany think the Allies are landing in Greece rather than Sicily – out in cinemas on Friday, April 15th

At the height of World War II, the Allies plan a mass landing at Sicily. They want the Germans to think it’s going to happen in Greece to reduce Allied casualties. In a Whitehall Admiralty basement operates the Twenty Committee, so-called after its initials XX (or double-cross) and its work managing double or triple agents (this work of the committee isn’t really alluded to in the film although a British triple agent appears later on and plays a fairly important part in the plot, which will include some racy if subtly understated physical sexual activity). On the floors above are top brass Admiral John Godfrey (Jason Isaacs) and his assistant Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn), the latter devouring novels and constantly bashing out prose on his typewriter in every spare moment.

The office in the basement itself is run with a rod of iron by the fearsome Hester Leggett (Penelope Wilton) while the Committee’s top man is Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth), a former Old Bailey lawyer whose friends believe to be in charge of naval supplies.… Read the rest