SPOILER ALERT: This piece contains spoilers for Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.
Though Renee Zellweger’s Bridget Jones has yet another major choice to navigate when it comes to love in the fourth film of the franchise, her late husband remains a constant presence in her mind.
Directed by Michael Morris, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy — streaming on Peacock as of Valentine’s Day — takes viewers through all kinds of emotions, and especially grief, as Bridget’s husband Mark Darcy’s death in Sudan took place in between the third and fourth films. A touching moment at the end of the film between Bridget, her children, and the man she ultimately ends up with involving the flight of a barn owl is ultimately up to interpretation according to Morris, but the attachment to the late Mark is most certainly one way of looking at it.
“I want that owl to function just the way anybody wants. You take what you want out of that scene. There seems to be a symbolic connection between the owl and their experience of the owl and Mark, but what I also love about how Chiwetel played that beat at the end, they’re all having their moment individually watching that owl fly away when it’s time and even Chiwetel’s character, even Mr. Walliker, who has previously been so rigid about science and ‘There’s no mystery. There’s just rules,’ even he is overcome by [it],” Morris told Deadline. “[He wonders] ‘Is there something about that?’ I think it shows us that he’s come to a new place in his life thanks to Bridget. He’s accepting of something out of the ordinary.
Mad About the Boy watches Bridget navigate the gutting loss amidst the everyday joys of her life as a mother with a wonderful support system comprised of many familiar faces from the past three films, until two new faces come along. Just as Bridget makes up her mind to get back out their several years after Mark’s death, she climbs “a magical man tree” to rescue her two children who get stuck up there one day, where her main two options of the film present themselves — Leo Woodall’s Roxster and Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Mr. Walliker.
“There’s a real tradition in the Bridget Jones films of these fantastically cast men opposite Bridget. It’s just so good the way they’ve done it in the past. So pressure’s on, but the good thing is these two were the very first. They were the two. It doesn’t get much more simple of a story,” Morris said of casting the pair of newcomers to the franchise. “It was like ‘Do you think it’s possible,” I said to the team, “that we could get Chiwetel Ejiofor to play Walliker?” and lo and behold, I met with him a couple of weeks later, and he loved the idea of making something that’s both fun and frothy, but that also had a serious undercurrent to it, because that’s very much who he is.”
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Ejiofor’s Mr. Walliker is the science teacher at her children’s elementary school in addition to the traffic guard who is very whistle happy when it comes to directing students onto campus and keeping things orderly with drop off. As the film progresses, though, viewers learn that there is more to the teacher than just facts and a love of structure.
“He’s a superlative dramatic actor, but he’s so charming as well. That’s the magic. In the movie, Chiwetel’s got this gravitas and this center. He’s scientific, he’s rigid. He doesn’t want to let any explanation other than science in, and that’s his position,” Morris said. And of course, we see him soften, because, like most people in Bridget’s world, they bend towards Bridget, She’s chaotic and warm and lovely, and they want that.”
Walliker’s solo introduction ahead of the magical man tree lends itself to that moment spotlighting Leo Woodall’s Roxster, a park ranger in his volunteer time and a student interested in biochemistry and how it relates to garbage when it comes to his future hopes. Roxster is ultimately the one who gets both the children and Bridget down after Walliker, who pauses his park jog to check on the family, resumes his exercise after Bridget convinces him they’re fine.
L-R: Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones, Leo Woodall as Roxster in ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’
Jay Maidment/Universal Pictures
“Leo’s a star. He’s a total star who’s just arrived. When I met him for this, I had asked to see him because of The White Lotus. One Day hadn’t come out [yet]. I was so struck by his performance in [The White Lotus], how big he made that character, how present he was,” Morris said. “And soon as I met him, I was like, “Okay, we we’ve got our guy. That’s it.” And then One Day came out, and the whole world was like ‘Leo Woodall.’ I’m really happy for him, but he’s able to do the same thing. He can be totally charismatic and effortless, but then the moment that it turns into something really intimate and serious, he’s there.”
Roxster and Bridget connect over a dating app, and though there proves a significant age gap between them, they hit it off and strike up a great spark. Roxster, despite preferring dating older women, drunkenly wishes one night that they had a time machine to minimize the gap.
“The age gap is a real part of their story, obviously, and at the end of their, their relationship, it’s obviously a thing because he comes out drunk with this line about wanting, you know, a time machine, like, ‘Oh we’re never going to work, right, because we’re wrong for each other,’ but what I love about their relationship, once you get beyond that, is that actually they’re into each other,” Morris said. “They really feel each other. He finds her really attractive and she finds him really attractive, and they have fun. The montage of them falling for each other is lovely and warm. It’s not actually trying to point out the differences between them. We deliberately didn’t want to come up with a scene where he was operating something that a young person knows how to do and she doesn’t. It’s actually about her finding this guy. And ultimately, he can’t see past that age thing for a while, and it’s sad. I didn’t really want to point out too much, like, ‘Oh, how funny to be young and old.’ That’s not what this is about.”
L-R: Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mr. Walliker, Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones
Jay Maidment/Universal Pictures
Walliker’s ability to bond with Bridget’s children — the other great loves of her life — signals a good match between him and Bridget. Like with the owl scene mentioned above, Bridget, in her own way, undergoes a transformation to meet him where he is at the end of the movie after a kiss in the snow and a cute Christmas party.
“After that balloon scene, the way the movie is structured, when she’s finally able to let go of something in that scene, it’s only then that the very next line, we’re overhead, and we pull back up with them, and she’s in bed with her sleeping children. Shee said, ‘What I have is what I love most in the world, just the three of us,’” Morris said. “And she’s come to this realization that she is now centered and safe and secure with her thing. She’s not looking for anything from anyone. And of course, it’s only then that you are open to meeting someone properly.”