In the 2001 film adaptation of *Bridget Jones’s Diary,* Renée Zellweger stars as the eccentric “singleton” and Hugh Grant plays her boss turned boyfriend.

Keeping Up with the Joneses

In the 1990s, Helen Fielding’s hilarious novel Bridget Jones’s Diary became a huge hit. Now revisionists are ruining the fun

By Hilary Rose

It’s 25 years since Bridget Jones’s Diary was published in the US and The New York Times is not amused. “Bridget Jones deserved better,” the headline reads. “We all did.” The article, which gives new meaning to the words po-faced, castigates Bridget for her nuttiness and self-loathing, rails against her hapless, flustered flakiness, calls her out for smoking and body shaming and ends with a clarion call for “stories which celebrate progress”. Oh God, must we?

The only thing the author can find to celebrate is the “fun” anachronisms scattered through the book, from answering machines to VCRs. I’m guessing she must have missed the bit about blue soup. And the emergency summits in Café Rouge after work, with Shazzer shouting about f***wittage through a haze of Silk Cut, and Jude bellowing about bastards over a bottle of Chardonnay. Is it possible not to laugh at Bridget’s New Year’s resolution to become “poised and cool ice-queen”, before noting sadly, “First day of New Year has been day of horror”?