witty and relatable
I‘ve read the book after I‘ve seen the movie. It is always interesting to see the differences and similarities, and to wonder about the reasons for what they chose to dismiss or to carry into the film, and to which extent and modification. To me, both versions are enjoyable. They are self-contained. The book version has more parallels to its grand literary model, Jane Austen‘s Pride & Prejudice. It was fun to detect the references and their degree of modulation (apart from the obvious Darcy trope, the mother occupies traits of both Mrs. Bennet and Lydia, for example). Funnily enough, both Hugh Grant (who plays Daniel Cleaver in the film) and Colin Firth (movie-Mark-Darcy) are mentioned in the book as celebrities, the latter even in regard to his legendary depiction of Mr. Darcy in the BBC production of Pride & Prejudice. In the book, the actor is mentioned to be scheduled for an interview conducted by Bridget (with the interview to take place in the second book "The edge of reason", according to an outtake I found on Youtube, where René Zellweger playing Bridget utters the catchphrase "The complex man behind the wet shirt" - hilarious). And then of course there’s all that modern noise - feminism, consumerism, ageism, fatphobia… and time-period-specific references. With the book taking place in the 90’s, having been a teenager at that time, I can relate and also understand lots of them. I don’t know if that works for folks that were barely or not even born yet. But apart from that, with Bridget’s diary entries being raw and unfiltered regarding emotions and thought processes, I can imagine those are timelessly relatable.
