- Renée Zellweger reprises her role as Bridget Jones in “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.”
- Hugh Grant also returns as Daniel Cleaver after the character was revealed to be alive in the third film.
- Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy is killed off, but the actor still shows up in a few scenes.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.”
Renée Zellweger is back as the titular heroine in “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” — this time as a widow juggling work, raising two kids, and dating.
“Mad About the Boy,” the fourth and final movie in the rom-com franchise, centers on Bridget Jones as a single woman following the death of her husband, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), four years earlier.
With the help of her friends, family, and ex-boyfriend Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), Bridget gets her groove back and works through the stages of grief.
Even though Firth’s character is dead, the actor still makes a few appearances throughout the movie. Meanwhile, Grant seamlessly slips back into his womanizer character, who was revealed to be alive at the end of the third movie, “Bridget Jones’s Baby.”
Here’s how “Mad About the Boy” incorporates Firth and Grant’s characters.
Colin Firth reprises his role as Mark Darcy in the form of hallucinations
Peacock
The movie opens with the revelation that Mark was killed four years ago in a deadly explosion while on a humanitarian mission in Sudan. Since then, Bridget has primarily focused on raising the couple’s two kids, 9-year-old Billy (Casper Knopf) and 4-year-old Mabel (Mila Jankovic).
Firth first appears as a hallucination when Bridget imagines Mark accompanying her to a small gathering in honor of his birthday. He also shows up when Bridget tucks her kids into bed.
Firth pops up one last time near the end of the movie when Billy performs during his school’s Christmas concert. After finishing his performance, Billy earns applause and a standing ovation from the audience. While clapping, Bridget looks over and hallucinates Mark standing nearby and doing the same.
By the film’s conclusion, Bridget and her kids have fully grieved Mark’s death, and the heroine realizes they’ll all be okay.
“Mad About the Boy” closes with a New Year’s Eve party set one year later. In a tribute to Mark, Billy is seen wearing the same green turtleneck sweater with a reindeer on it that his dad wore in the first “Bridget Jones” movie.
Bridget Jones and Daniel Cleaver don’t end up together. Instead, they maintain a close friendship.
Peacock
Bridget attended Daniel’s funeral at the start of “Bridget Jones’s Baby,” after he was presumed dead following a plane crash. However, the film concluded with the revelation that Daniel was found alive and living with a remote tribe in the Australian outback one year after the crash.
Although the past “Bridget Jones” films showed Bridget in a love triangle with Mark and Daniel, the latest movie squashes any chance of romantic reconciliation between her and Daniel.
The pair are now friends. While Daniel is still up to his womanizing ways, he also steps in to babysit Bridget’s kids when she needs help. Daniel also has a child, a 15-year-old son named Enzo, whom he’s estranged from and hasn’t seen since he was 2. Enzo also lives with his mom in Bologna, Italy.
Later in the movie when Daniel has a heart issue and ends up in the hospital, Bridget visits him. He tells her that his life flashed before his eyes and when he was asked to list a next of kin, the only person he could think of was Bridget.
Daniel then tells Bridget that seeing her with her kids made him contemplate what could have been if they ended up together. Bridget isn’t interested in Daniel romantically anymore, but she tells him that this health scare could mark a fresh start for him.
At the end of the film, Daniel reconnects with Enzo and introduces him to Bridget at the New Year’s Eve house party. Enzo is also seen flirting with a party guest, indicating that perhaps he’s not too different from his dad.
“Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” is streaming on Peacock.
