This is meant to be the last Bridget Jones film. And I, for one, will not stand for it.

I always forget Renée Zellweger is Texan. She does such a flawless British accent as Bridget Jones, I am rocked to my core when I hear her natural voice. Let’s be honest, it’s a legendary performance in a stupidly good film.

With apologies to critics everywhere, I’d sooner watch Bridget Jones’s Diary on a loop for 48 hours than sit through Citizen Kane once. If I should fall into a coma, put on the scene where Bridget’s mum demonstrates how to use an egg‑shelling device, and I’ll come around.

Seriously. It is art. The big knickers? The blue soup? The descent down a firefighter’s pole butt-first into a camera? In the genre of “harried woman falls for stoic man”, this film is unrivalled.

Or films, I should say. There are now four. Bridget’s back – she’s got kids, she’s got new love interests (Leo Woodall and Chiwetel Ejiofor). As far as I can tell from the trailer, though, she’s the same old Bridge: unbrushed hair, unhinged parents, deeply endearing flaws (we like her just the way she is).

This is meant to be the last Bridget Jones film. And I, for one, will not stand for it. If there weren’t arguably more urgent social injustices to protest, I’d take to the streets. What do we want? More Bridget Jones movies! When do we want them? However long it takes!

Usually, I have a pretty strong anti-sequel stance. I admire brevity and restraint: TV shows that end after three seasons, movies that stand alone. I think Kristen Wiig is right to refuse to do another Bridesmaids and I don’t formally recognise any of the Sex and the City films as canon. I’ll allow this upcoming Jurassic Park spin-off only because of Jonathan Bailey’s slutty little glasses.

In this case, however, the more Bridget the better. Actually – stay with me – I think Bridget should be rebooted ad infinitum. In the same nonsensical way as James Bond, where countless different actors take on the role but we never once acknowledge it within the plot. He drastically changes appearance and never ages. He’s Sean Connery, he’s Pierce Brosnan, he’s Daniel Craig. No explanation, he just gets replaced and the espionage continues.

Bridget Jones deserves the same treatment. For too long, we’ve endured endless speculation about who will play Bond next. It’s a weirdly significant cultural fixation: who will inherit the umbrella gun? Who is going to smooch ladies on runaway trains? Who will live to die another day, or whatever!?

When Craig was recently asked who he thought his successor should be, he said: “I don’t care.” Frankly, Daniel, neither do I, but we have been doing this too long to stop now. We love to channel our myriad rages and fears into the subject of who might play a philandering agent of His Majesty’s Secret Service.

Now we must do the same for Bridge. Recast, reboot, rewatch. If Renée is ready to hang up Bridget’s “absolutely enormous panties”, let someone else attend the turkey curry buffet. Nicola Coughlan? Florence Pugh? Zendaya? It will be near-impossible to find anyone who can do foppish bad boy as well as Hugh Grant, or self-important soft man as tenderly as Colin Firth, but it is our imperative to try.

If we printed all the articles about who will play the next James Bond, you could wallpaper every villain’s lair from floor to ceiling many times over. We owe the same to our favourite hapless reporter with her ugly Christmas jumpers, her non-existent skirt and her incongruently nice London flat.

I dream of a time, decades from now, when I overhear my grown nieces squabbling over who was the best Bridget Jones. I’ll raise my glass and say sagely: “Nobody did it like Renée Zellweger.”

By Kate Leaver @kileaver
Kate Leaver is an author, journalist and former professional fairy.

Published in ed#730