Had the original *Bridget Jones* film been made now, HR would have held a meeting.

Good-Bye, Noughties!

Gone are the fun, messy, and fast times at work—perhaps for the better, says the cast of Bridget Jones

By Simon Mills

Let me take you back to 1996 and the writer Helen Fielding’s set-up of the original Bridget Jones’s Diary story. Bridget is having a fling with her boss Daniel Cleaver after a few flirty messages, then things turn sour when Cleaver sleeps with another colleague, causing Jones to feel compelled to resign.

Fast-forward to 2025, and Rénee Zellweger, who reprises her role as Bridget in Mad About the Boy, the forthcoming fourth film in the series, is admitting that this kind of company-time carousing would probably not withstand scrutiny from today’s human resources departments.