Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy – our favourite frazzled English woman is back but life’s more complicated

By Mary Harrod, Professor of French and Screen Studies, University of Warwick

Bridget Jones, the endearingly chaotic heroine who is unlucky in love, is back – but not as many might expect. This is the fourth Bridget Jones film, which adapts the story of the third book in Helen Fielding’s much-loved series (the third film, Bridget Jones’s Baby, was based on the fourth book).

When Bridget Jones’s Diary came out in 2001, our heroine’s low-level eating disorder, neediness and alcohol abuse associated female singlehood with mental instability.…

Read complete article

~	Evolving intelligent life took billions of years − but it may not have been as unlikely as many scientists predicted

~	Belarus: Violations remain ‘widespread and systematic’, says independent expert group

~	UN rights office condemns continuing Israeli military operation in West Bank

~	Most of the world has long feared US power. Now its allies do too.

~	Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says antidepressants are harder to quit than heroin – is he right?

~	White Lotus does Thailand dirty

~	Apple Cider Vinegar: how social media gave rise to fraudulent wellness influencers like Belle Gibson

~	Masturbation remains taboo – but research shows how it can be good for you

~	What does the Bible say about who belongs in the ‘promised land’? A biblical scholar explains

~	‘Myrrh, conifer oil and … breakfast tea’: my sniffer team’s surprise findings on what mummified bodies smell like