How life moves on. It's 12 years since Bridget Jones, her diary and a tumultuous love life last hit our cinema screens with BJ: The Edge of Reason. Now she's back again, single once more, and 43 years old. Yes, 43.

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Renée Zellweger reprises her dithery role, marking her 40-something day with a single cupcake and a Celine Dion ballad. But Bridge now has a successful career, nice flat and is determined to give love another chance. And so are the millions of us flocking to see Bridget Jones's Baby in the cinemas.

Confession time; I've never seen a Bridget Jones movie before. I know, I know, I'm very late. but I recently swore I’d watch more romcoms. What better place to start than with the new Bridget Jones movie?

Being in my mid 30s, single for quite a long time, living in a flat in central London and a career in the media, this movie seems like it was made for me.

And having been told by my cinema buddy (who is a huge Bridget Jones fan) that the first films were two of the most relatable romcoms of a generation, I had high hopes. I mean, big pants, calorie counting, chain smoking, bad dates... we've all been there.

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The third BJ movie opens with single Bridget at a point where she thinks, “Casual sex, until I meet the right person, why not have some fun?" That’s relatable in my book.

So is going to a festival or having a night out where (with the help of alcohol) you do something against your better judgement, which results in embarrassing or less than dignified situations.

But, and here's the thing, would one of those nights involve a man who just happens to looks like the very sexy Grey’s Anatomy neurosurgeon Derek 'McDreamy' Shepherd? And who then turns out to be one of the world's 1,800 billionaires. Hold on. He's also single, very rich AND sane. Oh yes, and he's fallen in love with me.

Nah.

And then there’s the fact that Bridge becomes pregnant at 43, right away, after only two nights of sex, even though she was using "old, biodegradable condoms".

I don’t know what the odds are on both of those scenarios coming true for me. Still one can dream.

But the most unbelievable thing about this movie - and the one I’d love to be convinced by - is the reaction of the men involved.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I simply can’t imagine guys being perfectly OK with being told that a baby is theirs and then that it could be someone else's. What do you do? Team up, of course, and work together.

No man I’ve come across would be this supportive or gentlemanly.

It all leads to a slapstick-heavy who’s the daddy saga, which comes across like a mixture of Fawlty Towers and Jeremy Kyle. And as Bridget refuses to have the risky amniocentesis procedure that would reveal the baby’s paternity, the two men involved spend most of the movie vying for Bridget’s affections and hoping that the child is theirs.

I can't imagine a man I had a one-night-stand with would be:

a) happy I was pregnant
b) fine with the fact I sleeping with my ex
c) consider me to be his possible future wife.

That’s the man made of sterner stuff.

But hey, it's a romcom and it's Hollywood and I need to stop looking for real life...

To be fair, when booking tickets for Bridget Jones’s Baby I didn’t expect to get a real representation of pregnancy or even top of the line acting (sorry Renée).

Instead, it’s a movie to embrace and enjoy in all its silliness and farcical glory. And it IS great to see a 40-something woman play the romantic lead in a Hollywood movie.

And I did get plenty of good mid-week laughs and weepy eyes. Now, if only my very handsome, extremely understanding, filthy rich future husband would step forward, I’d be sorted.

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Authors

Hazelann WilliamsFormer Reviews Editor

Having been a journalist for 15 years – and Reviews Editor at MadeForMums for five of those – Hazelann has accrued a lot of experience testing and reviewing every baby product imaginable.

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