'Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy' is out now — here's how it differs from the book
The fourth and final Bridget Jones film is based on the 2013 novel of the same name. As with any book-to-screen adaptation, some changes have been made.
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- Warning: This article contains major spoilers for "Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy."
- The fourth and final Bridget Jones film is an adaptation of the 2013 novel of the same name.
- As with any book-to-screen adaptation, there have been changes — some big, some small.
"Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy," the fourth and final book-to-screen adaptation from Helen Fielding's best-selling series, is streaming on Peacock.
The movie centers on Bridget (Renée Zellweger) navigating life as a widow and single mother with the help of her family, friends, and former flame, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant).
Taking place four years after the death of her husband, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), the film sees Bridget open herself up to love again, which results in her being pursued by a younger man (Leo Woodall) as well as her son's science teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
As with the previous films in the series, some changes have been made in translating the story from book to screen, including Bridget's career and some details about how her relationship with her young love interest, Roxster, unfolds.
Meanwhile, Bridget's blossoming friendships with fellow mums Rebecca (Isla Fisher) and Nicolette (Leila Farzad) have been largely cut from the film.
Here are seven of the biggest differences between the book and film of "Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy"
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Shazzer does not make much of an appearance in the book. She is the only one of Bridget's close friends to leave London, having moved to Silicon Valley to become a "dot-com whizz" with her husband.
In the movie, not much is revealed about Shazzer's relationship status but she's still living in London and hosts a podcast. Shazzer is still close with Bridget, and at one point she babysits her children for a night so she can go on a date.
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Early in the film, Bridget's neighbor shouts at her three children and threatens to send them to "Squid Game" if they don't behave.
Bridget sees this from across the road and calls her a "hero," but the neighbor doesn't appear for the rest of the film.
In the book, Bridget and the woman, who is called Rebecca, have more awkward interactions like the one in the film. Rebecca, who has two children, and Bridget eventually become friends and host playdates for one another.
When Bridget falls for Mr. Wallaker in the book, Rebecca helps her learn about his background, since her husband is his best friend.
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In both the book and the film, Bridget tries to get herself out of a rut by returning to work a few years after Mark's death.
In the film, Bridget asks her former boss, Richard Finch (Neil Pearson), to get her a job as a producer on the morning news show "Better Woman." Miranda, Bridget's coworker and friend in "Bridget Jones' Baby," hosts the show alongside another woman called Talitha.
In the book, Bridget doesn't return to full-time work. Instead, she writes a movie script, adapting a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen called "Hedda Gabler." It's picked up by a studio, but they eventually replace Bridget with a full-time screenwriter because she is always distracted.
The film becomes a straight-to-DVD movie.
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The film changes Bridget's relationship with her 29-year-old "toyboy" in a number of ways.
Instead of connecting with the charming, flirty Roxster McDuff (Leo Woodall) on Twitter as she does in the book, Bridget meets him when he rescues her and her children from a tree on London's Hampstead Heath. The two then reconnect when they match on a dating app.
In the book, their relationship ends after Roxster tells Bridget he thinks he should be with someone his own age. The two meet again and Roxster tries to win Bridget back.
In the film, Roxster suddenly ghosts Bridget without explanation, only to show up at the TV studio where she works weeks later to apologize.
But in both versions, Bridget realizes that the two are at different life stages and they have an emotional goodbye.
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In the film, Daniel, the former playboy, has a teenage son named Enzo (Alessandro Bedetti), whom he doesn't see very often.
However, after being diagnosed with a heart murmur, Daniel reevaluates his life and decides to reconnect with him.
When we meet Enzo at Bridget's New Year's Eve party at the end of the film, he has inherited his father's womanizing ways, flirting outrageously with Bridget's friends.
In the book, Daniel doesn't have a son and is an aging bachelor. He does end up in hospital because of an alcohol dependency. Afterward, Bridget and others realize they need to prioritize their friendships with Daniel and keep an eye on him.
In both the film and the book, the health scare is a wake-up call for Daniel, but for different reasons.
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In both the book and the film, Nicolette is the overbearing mother of twins who attend the same school as Bridget's son, Billy.
In the film, while Bridget is initially intimidated by Nicolette and her dedication to her children's education. But we see that her husband is a workaholic who is always on calls and her sons aren't as smart as she makes out.
The book delves deeper into Nicolette's story, revealing that her husband has been having an affair, and her world crumbles.
After Nicolette confides in Bridget, Bridget invites her over and the two spend a night drinking, eating junk food, and scrolling dating sites, cementing their unlikely friendship.
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In the film, Bridget's nine-year-old son Billy (Casper Knopf) grieves his father's death and worries about forgetting him as he grows older.
His science teacher, Mr. Wallaker, eventually helps him work through this and perform a solo at the school's Christmas concert in honor of Mark.
This storyline is absent from the book, although Bridget does note in her diary entries that both Billy and Mabel were helped by an "army of bereavement counselors and therapists" in the aftermath of Mark's death.
