It's not easy to make a sequel to a romantic comedy. By their very nature, romantic comedies require there to be no more story after the happily-ever-after. If you saw what happened after the two people who were flawed but clearly meant for each other got together after overcoming enormous obstacles, you'd be inevitably disappointed. Either it'd be really boring (They're happy! And then ... they're still happy!) or really disheartening (Love does not conquer all and the perfect couple breaks up). Think about it: Would you want to see When Harry Broke Up With Sally or There's Something Else About Mary? Doubtful.
So Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the sequel to the charming 2001 romantic comedy Bridget Jones's Diary, already has one strike against it. Diary did a perfect job of essaying the standard rom-com arc, setting up the hapless Bridget (Renee Zellweger) with her cad of a boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), only to have him dump her so she could end up with the real man of her dreams, brooding human-rights lawyer Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). The movie ended with Bridget and Mark kissing in the snow, a wonderful happily-ever-after for slightly overweight, neurotic women everywhere.
So why a sequel? Well, money, of course, as with any sequel. But since there is an actual movie happening it's necessary to come up with a narrative reason. The Edge of Reason starts with Bridget and Mark deliriously happy after six weeks of, as Bridget notes, near-constant shagging. The film then spends its entire first third wrenching the couple apart so it can spend the next two thirds getting them back together. Although almost all rom-coms are contrived and predictable, this one is doubly so, since not only do we know that Bridget and Mark will get together at the end, but they're also already together at the beginning. Bridget has to behave like a total ass to get the breakup to work, and she moves from being endearingly clueless to plain unlikable on a few occasions.
Broken up with Mark and forced to work on a TV travel special with Daniel, Bridget winds up in Thailand facing the temptation to reignite her fling with her slimy but sexy old flame. Grant, in a smaller role than in the first film, is a hoot, and despite everyone knowing Bridget will end up with boring old Mark and that's what the audience is supposed to want, Daniel again comes across as the more vibrant, interesting character. Daring would be the film that put the heroine in the arms of the rogue at the end, but this isn't it.
Along the way to the inevitable resolution, The Edge of Reason recycles some of Diary's most memorable bits, including Bridget's oversized bum filling a television screen and the awkward fisticuffs between Daniel and Mark. The plot meanders from a German ski resort to Mark's upper-crust law society parties to a Thai prison, where Bridget ends up thanks to an absurd turn of events that do indeed take the story to the edge of reason. Teaching plucky female Thai inmates to sing "Like a Virgin" is not one of Bridget's (nor the film's) finer moments, and using their plight to teach our heroine a lesson is more than a little morally dicey.
But moral lessons are not why you come to this sort of film, and ultimately The Edge of Reason succeeds as a watered-down version of the first film. There's some nice romance, some very funny jokes, and the winning central performance of Zellweger, who makes Bridget consistently charming even as she's acting like a complete prat. Grant could have used more screen time, and Firth is steadfastly dull as Mark, but that's really all the role calls for. It's unlikely that Bridget's next diary will call for a cinematic treatment; two helpings prove to be more than enough.