Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boymight be the least belovedof theBridget Jonessaga, with some critiquingRenée Zellweger’s performance as the titular character and others having issues with the meandering plot structure, as I found it to be less engaging than I would have hoped when watching it. However, there is one aspect of the film that no one is critiquing heavily:Hugh Grant’s performance. When watching anyBridget Jonesfilm, and particularlyMad About the Boy, it isremarkable how much we are drawn to Hugh Grant’s sleazy womanizer, Daniel.
On the surface, everyone should hate this character. He is rude andlacks boundaries when dealing with pretty much everyone, but particularly women.Yet, despite his lines about “naughty nuns” and how it was an “overreaction” that he cheated on a woman with her sister, we still love him and fear for him when he is in hospital with a heart condition, but why? I argue this is because of a mixture of things. Grant’s jolly delivery,the undercurrent of insecurity within the character,and the form of meta-comfort we get from Grant being on-screen, no matter what he’s doing, aredue to his past roles and almost omnipresent career on our screens, particularly for a Brit like me.
When Grant calls Bridget a “very naughty nun” after babysitting her kids for the evening or talks about how he’ll give her incredible orgasms while on the phone at a poetry reading, Zellweger’s giggle and Grant’s wry smile coupled with a head tilt let the audience into the joke, where it isn’t sinister butgenuinely meant to be over the top so that you laugh. The fact he tells everyone else at the reading he is really on the phone with his mother makes us entertained by how far Grant’s character will go in his dirty talk, knowing that he will eventually realize just how bad it sounds to everyone around him,yet the confidence with which he plays it off enamors uswith this characterwho seems to have no social anxiety whatsoever. If anything, rather than being appalled, we wish we could be self-assured like this man, though perhaps with a little more decorum.
Hugh Grant’s Daniel Stays Sympathetic by Revealing His Deep Regrets
Now, for some,Hugh Grant’s character, Daniel, might be just on the edge of going too far.After all, not everyone would be impressed that he told Jones' son about women with big… hair. However, Daniel holds an insecurity that cuts through his sexual sleaze and shows us amore complex side to this seemingly one-note character. When he is in the hospital following a health scare surrounding his heart, he laments his lack of “kin,” hinting thathis life of being abachelorhas not given him the fulfillment he was searching for.
Furthermore, we see that what he truly values are his moments with Bridget,mentioning how she is in many of his favorite life moments, and being genuinely kind to herwhen she needs that bit of validation as she struggles with her own self-worth. The fact he doesn’t completely drop this attitude towards sex, almost getting undressed when the nurse comes in, means that we feel the sense of regret thatDaniel just expressed because we see that he can’t be anything more than he is.Sadly, it is second nature for him at this point. However,we love to see him prove himself wrong when he does make genuine connections, like with his son at the end of the film, as it proves to us that anyone can change. All they need is the desire to do so.
Finally, I believe Hugh Grant’s stellar career has meantwe always feel in safe hands as an audience when he appears in a film,and it allows him to get away with his sleazier characters. When Grant began his career in films such asLove Actually,Four Weddings and a Funeral, andNotting Hill, he enforced his idea in our minds that he is a romantic gentleman, bumbling in his attempts to do the right thing and, crucially, to make the woman he was pursuing feel comfortable. Because of this, seeing him play a sleaze is an enjoyable departure. His roles inThe GentlemenandHeretic, where he played morally corrupt characters, arecelebrated because we get to witness an actor entering a new stage of their career, and we get a sense of freedom from them in not being typecast.
However, even in these roles, includingMad About the Boy, there was still an air of charm to him.We enjoy being frightened by Grant or laughing at him because of how we have been conditioned to view him as a pretty boy. Therefore, even when we are frightened or disappointed in the character’s sleaze, we don’t feel a necessary threat the same way we do with someone likeBill Skarsgård, who has regularly played monsters and villains, which meant that seeing him as a normal guy inBarbarianheld an undercurrent of tension as, like Grant but in the opposite way,we have been conditioned to see this actor as a certain type of character.
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Overall, I’m sure there are people who not only didn’t enjoyMad About the Boybut also didn’t find Grant’s Daniel a character they could relate to in any way. After all, he is a straight, white, rich male who, at times, views women as little more than sex objects.However, Grant’s performance in the role helps to make this sleaze sexy.His delivery of his dirty talk holds an air of silliness to it, as it is so exaggerated and does get him into trouble. His regrets over the life he lived tell us he isn’t as simple a man as we first thought, and Grant’s decade-spanning career has put him in a unique position of being such a comfort to moviegoers, almost akin to aTom Hanks.When he is on-screen, no matter what, he is charming and a comfort to watch.
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy
Widowed for four years, Bridget Jones raises her children while supported by friends and family. Pressed to rebuild her life, she returns to work and explores dating, meeting a younger man. Balancing romance, work, and motherhood, Bridget navigates pressures from all parts of her social and family life.
