Last week, the second full-length trailer for Bridget Jones’s Baby dropped. I didn’t cover it because A) I didn’t think people would care and B) I found the second trailer even more depressing than the first trailer. While I am excited to see Renee Zellweger return to a celebrated and beloved role, as I see more of the plot, my excitement dies a little bit. I just think baby-daddy hijinks for a woman in her mid-to-late 40s is a bit much, honestly. Out of all the plot lines, they chose that? I understand that they’re basing it off Helen Fielding’s columns, but maybe they shouldn’t have waited so many years to make this one? Here’s the second trailer:
So, yes, I have some complaints. At the heart of those complaints is just plain old disappointment though: the first Bridget Jones movie is as close to perfect as possible. It is arguably one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time. Renee was so good in it that she got an Oscar nom! But 15 years later, we’re getting this mess. And when one critic – Variety’s Owen Gleiberman – expressed his disappointment, he got into a world of trouble. Gleiberman wrote a piece called “Renee Zellweger: If She No Longer Looks Like Herself, Has She Become a Different Actress?” You can read the piece here. It’s supposed to be a “think-piece” about how Zellweger has changed her face so drastically that she’s no longer believable as Bridget Jones, and this guy is personally offended by that. He goes on at length about the pressures of society, and how Zellweger used to be pretty in a normal, believable, girl-next-door sort of way but now she doesn’t look like herself because of her very noticeable plastic surgery and he just goes on and on about it.
So, obviously, Owen Gleiberman got slammed all over the place for being sexist and ageist. If we’re saying that this dude never would have written a long-winded, body-policing think-piece about how Russell Crowe is no longer believable as a leading man because of how HE looks and how HE is ageing, I can see that point, and I agree with it. That is sexist and ageist if we’re just going to go on and on about only the actresses. But… I also think that Gleiberman had a (albeit minor) point? If actors and actresses want to drastically change their looks through plastic surgery, so be it. Live and let live, and your body, your choice. But of course people are going to comment. And some of us even made similar comments when we first saw the set photos of Renee-as-Bridget, that “she doesn’t even look like Bridget” and “why does she look so different?” Of course none of us wrote long-winded hot-take think-pieces for Variety analyzing all of the many ways in which her face disappoints us personally.
Why is it odd for Renée Zellweger to look slightly different than she did 15 years ago, but not odd for Kate Beckinsale to look identical?
— Daniel Fienberg (@TheFienPrint) July 2, 2016
@Variety It's called aging, any by the way, everyone is doing it. We aren't helping women become stronger by pointing out their ages…
— Trevor Jordan (@VampirePangs) July 1, 2016
Dear @Variety and @OwenGleiberman .. What a load of sexist GARBAGE. Delete your account(s).
— Lindazilla (@Lindazilla) July 1, 2016
Photos courtesy of WENN, EW, Fame/Flynet.
God I LOVE the first Bridget Jones film.
It’ s just perfect and always reminds me of Christmas!
same here 🙂
I do too, one of my favorite films.
Loved it to bits.
I watch it over and over again and never get tired of it.
It’s just adorable, feel good and sweet, not to mention hilarious.
I’m mad that they have cheapened it with this dreck and the first sequel.
this!
and this movie will end like aaaaaall the others. It will be Mark’s and they will have their happy ending. again. until the next sequel, when they are broken up again. annoying.
The sequel was terrible, but worth it just for the fellows fighting around the fountain scene. OMG, I could watch it on a loop.
Meanwhile, what century is this? She could find out the father of the child in a heartbeat, no pun intended. At her advanced maternal age, or as they call it in the medical community: geriatric, she would have had an amnio. And right then they could have determined the baby daddy. Seriously, writers. Maury Povich is so 1998.
–TheRealPinky
There are so many lines from that film that I try to incorporate into my daily life. My personal favourite being “Come the f-k on, Bridget”.
“YES. Fill ‘er up, goddammit” is my fave.
“I am very busy and important.”
“Tangerine-tinted buffoon” gets me every time.
Tis Pervert is a personal fave ha
Love the first one so much! My almost 18 year old son watched it recently and he is now obsessed with Bridget and Mark Darcy.
It is such a beautiful thing! I’ve watched it more than once in one night, and even developed an affection for the second one, just because of my goodwill toward the first. I will probably try this one too and hope it’s not a pure stinker.
–TheRealPinky
Me too. I pretend the sequels don’t exist, therefore I stop my ears at this article and cry ‘LA LA LA LA LA”
The first one was great. Second one was meh. This one shouldn’t have happened.
I think he has a point. She does look very different to when she first played the character, and not only beause of aging.
The Kate Beckinsale tweet was spot on, tho.
I don’t get the Kate mention, what does she have to do with this?
She was saying that Renee is being criticised for aging whereas Kate has had so much done to her face that she still looks like she did years ago. So ageing (and/or weird looking surgery) bad, successful plastic surgery good.
Exactly, Denise.
The Kate B comment is spot on as Lannister said.
Everyone is mixing two valid points – 1. Yes, people age and look different than they did when we were first introduced, and 2. People intentionally mess with their faces in an attempt to either regain their earlier looks or change things they don’t like.
Now, attacking people (men or women) for the former is unforgivable and most likely done in a sexist environment (meaning, women are usually called out, men are not).
Making a big deal about the latter is somewhat understandable. It may not be kind, but are we all supposed to pretend that the emperor isn’t naked? When we (the audience) go to see a particular actor, and their looks are altered so drastically that we don’t recognize them, doesn’t that pull focus and make us wonder what happened and why? Do we have the same feelings we had about them before (since everything is so tied up and part of their old appearance) or do we have to get to know this “new” version?
And it’s not only women. When Kenny Rogers had eye surgery and looked like an Asian version of himself, you better believe people noticed and commented. Unfortunately because of the aging process, it’s usually the women who have the more drastic surgeries.
It all does seem mean though because (I’m thinking) Renee and Kenny and hey there Meg (Ryan), didn’t expect their surgery to end up like it did. They had good intentions and aspirations they would simply look like better, younger versions of themselves. Should we collectively continue to remind them of the obvious mistake? Did they cry after that first post-op look in the mirror? Perhaps. And I agree that Kate B. tweet is so spot on. We know she’s had work (unless she’s a vampire) but we don’t call her out on it because it was GOOD work.
I don’t have a conclusion here, just those thoughts …
I suppose it just has to be possible to simultaneously hate what plastic surgery does to people’s face and concern-trolling-but-really-misogynistic articles. Count me in.
Maybe, but I still don’t get the point he/Kaiser are making. I recognise her as Renee Z without seeing her name printed. Isn’t that enough? Does she need to look the same but just older?
My issue with PS will always be whether I still recognise the person or not. And I didn’t really recognise Russell Crowe when I saw him in Body of Lies even thought no PS had been done. So perhaps we will be lucky enough to get an inane article on him looking different but I won’t hold my breath.
I’ve got the day off sick – I really should just go back to bed!
I think it would be sexist if he was saying she looked too OLD to be Bridget Jones, but that’s not what he’s saying. He’s complaining that she doesn’t look like herself anymore, and she doesn’t. Some people have plastic surgery and they look like themselves but rested or themselves but pulled too tight. She looks like a different person. I don’t think that was her intention, but it’s a risk you take when you decide to have surgery and I’m tired of people pretending it’s rude or sexist to notice.
totally
she’s an actress not an accountant. how is it not germane that she looks like a different person but is repeating a role from her old face? i’m sure it was not her intention that the old face was better (not because it was younger).
that said, women in hollywood get surgery exactly because they’re not expected to age like humans do. and that’s sexist.
Totally.
Yes! And did Variety ever go on and on about Mickey Rourke’s face? Burt Reynold’s face? What about Michael Douglas who has practically turned into a woman? Yes, I have commented on Renee’s changing face here, but I think that is very different than dedicating a whole article on her face in a trade paper. That’s just kind of gross.
Carol: i’m guessing you are young if you’ve never seen the articles and interviews explaining Mickey Rourke’s face. Pretty sure there was one in Vanity fair a few years ago.
Ditto, Butt Reynolds’ recent vanity fair article asked him directly and later pontificated on his surgery and toupees.
Since you don’t know about Mickey Rourke, i’ll give you the history, which was once written about all the time and which the man himself was interviewed about countless times.
Once a upon a time, a pretty boy named Mickey Rourke became a hollywood pretty boy heartthrob. Celebrated for his looks.
Except his background was a twisted machismo that made him think that acting was not what ‘real’ men did, and he loathed every minute of it, especially the pretty boy heartthrob accolades.
So he quit Hollywood to become a boxer because apparently that was a ‘real man’s job.
Fast-forward a few years later and he quits his boxing career having failed at it and going back to Hollywood with his tail between his legs. Apparently he’d had a road to damascus moment about acting afterall.
The problem was that his face had been disfigured during the boxing. He not only didn’t look like himself anymore, but he had damaged his face. So he had plastic surgery to repair the damage. And unfortunately, he chose a terrible plastic surgeon who made it worse. He sued the plastic surgeon. (can’t remember if he won). He went to other surgoens to fix the bad surgery. Cue lots of surgery to fix his face.
What you see is the final result. Mickey Rourke has never ever claimed to plastic surgery to look younger or better or some such reasons. The damage done to it was so awful that he can never get it looking any better than it is. And he is the first to admit that it looks awful.
Please take him off the list of ‘plastic surgery to look younger’ that you’ve put him on. He was misguided in his machismo, and his face is probably a daily reminder of that.
Ps: this is the only aspect of Mickey I defend. The rest not so much.
What about Mickey’s latest round of work though?
I recognize my bias here in that I think he is a terrible person. It is possible that his latest work is corrective, but it’s appears to be a bad face lift.
Bridget – I don’t know a whole lot about him as a person other than all the work he’s gotten (because of boxing) and that he loves his dogs. He may be a complete garbage human for all I know.
But I’m not going to ding him for the plastic surgery. It’s mainly corrective – and he’s starting to look like an older version of his old self – and even if the latest rounds weren’t just for function, but were out of vanity, I’m still not going to ding him on that one. I figure most people would want to look like themselves as much as possible after all the terrible surgery. It’s not like he looks like a 4 year old – he looks like a 60 something Mickey Rourke if the damage hadn’t happened.
Bridget: What Erinn said.
Despite his shortcomings, of which there are plenty, this is the one thing i can’t snark about.
His surgeries have taken years. He hasn’t had one or two or even three. He has had repeated corrective surgery to try to look like himself as much as possible.
I’ve just googled his boxing years, and whilst i can’t find photos, i founds lots of references to his needing to reconstruct aspects of his face. He was unfortunate in his initial surgeon because they botched the job.
@Erinn: he is a complete garbage human.
I realize that reconstructive work is a very complex process, both physically and emotionally. BUT keep in mind that it’s not exactly unprecedented for individuals to use reconstruction as a cover for simply wanting to get more work done, and I wouldn’t put that past Mickey, not to mention the fact that with the level of reconstructive work we’re talking about he would have had to have been beaten into an unrecognizable bloody pulp multiple times. Again, see his recent face lift that has pulled his entire face so tight that he’s almost completely unrecognizable.
That’s a lot of words for me to say I’ve always wondered if the “fixing boxing injuries” was code for “trying to reverse the damage from drugs & alcohol”.
One thing’s for sure – No matter the reason for the work done, people definitely notice and comment on it.
What? Someone needs to hop in her time machine and read press from the release of “The Wrestler.” Maybe Variety didn’t go on and on and on about it, but almost every other outlet mentioned the drastic change in Rourke’s appearance due to his botched plastic surgeries.
“He made himself nearly unrecognizable.” – Time
“Mickey’s plastic-surgery ravaged pout…” – Pajiba
“It doesn’t hurt that now he has the mug of a man hit by a few too many folding chairs…” – Orlando Sentinel
“Rourke’s face has a ruined leonine quality, his lips perpetually pursed in something closer to shark pout than a trout pout.” – The Guardian
“When you finally get to really see Rourke’s face, the result is a bit startling.” — Miami Herald
“Rourke is scarcely more recognizable as this over-the-hill palooka than as the hulking cyber-enhanced mutant shtarke he played in Sin City, but there’s still the shadow of his soft-lipped, baby-face smile.” – Village Voice
I guess I didn’t make my point that clear so let me clarify. Of course there are many articles that mention people’s plastic surgery, men and women, but what I found sexist in this particular article was that it didn’t just mention Renee’s changing face it was ABOUT her face. I wonder if Variety would write an entire article on Burt Reynolds changing face if he starred in a sequel to Deliverance. Where is Variety’s article on John Travolta’s immobile face and wacky wiglets? Ok, maybe I’ll take Mickey Rourke off the list (I’m quite aware about his boxing history and the result being a busted up face), but I don’t count his facelift as “corrective surgery.”
And if this article was meant to show how an actor’s changing face can affect a viewer’s enjoyment of their films, then Owen should have included other actors/actresses who have also messed up their faces. But it didn’t. It appears more of a personal slight against an actress he once liked.
It’s sexist because he would never have written a piece about a man’s unrecognizable face. Only women have their appearance scrutinized in such a matter. Women only matter for their looks and the good Lord should help any woman who isn’t a hot 25-year-old.
Well that’s an assumption you don’t know what he would write. Unless you know of his work and he has avoided the subject when talking about men in the past.
That is not true. All celebrities are scrutinized about their looks. We also talk about how men change their face with plastic surgery: Kenny Rogers, Bert Reynolds, Mickey Rourke, Michael Jackson, Carrot Top, Barry Manilow, Wayne Newton are some of the extreme cases. I understand what the author was saying. He was not criticizing her for looking older, but not looking like her old self. If she is happy with what she has done with her face, I am happy for her. But I agree, it is difficult to watch a sequel when the main character looks nothing like herself. Maybe we should stop waiting over a decade to make the sequel: Unless the sequel is about when the character is older. Hard to suspend belief when it is 20 years later in real life but the story takes place a year later.
Kenny Rogers’ face has been the subject of lots of comments.
I’m not sure “never” is true. I do think women are more heavily scrutinized. But I still say you can’t change your face to the point where you’re unrecognizable and expect people not to notice. It has nothing to do with her aging, except as ell said, she may have had the surgery because of sexist pressure to look young.
But its not that writer just mentioned Renee’s face, he wrote an entire piece on her changing looks. In a trade paper. I used to read Owen’s columns and movie reviews when he worked in Entertainment Weekly and thought his writing was spot on. It’s just surprising that he would write an entire piece on an actress’s face ….in a trade paper.
It’s possible that the reason Zellweger had the eye procedure is that people with her natural eyelids can suffer complications in later years, when muscles weaken and elasticity goes: the “squint” can become a vision-obscuring droop, speeding up or even complicating the normal vision issues that come with age. It’s ridiculous and just plain lazy to make someone’s motivation the premise for a “thinkpiece” when – instead of actually doing a little research to LEARN their motivation, you just project your own opinions and stereotypes of “the aging actress” onto them, and confuse it for insight. Owen Gleiberman is in no position to wax philosophical over Zellweger’s face because, I can virtually guarantee you, he has ZERO knowledge of what goes on behind her face… just assumptions.
Secondly, it’s a dick move to publicly criticize someone else’s appearance, whether you’re talking about a famous actress or your neighbor. Period. Full stop. Bottom line. And it’s a RAREFIED level of dickishness to do it self-righteously, a la concern troll. We can have all sorts of meaningful discussions about sexism, ageism, plastic surgery, pressure and double standards without having to use anyone as examples. Blasting someone’s face lift doesn’t make you a feminist (or an ally), it just makes you mean.
Exactly. Just stating the obvious is what is happening here. Renee had her work done while she was so young & it is just so noticeable. So when playing an iconic character like Bridget Jones, why wouldn’t it be mentioned?
Ugh my difficulty with the whole topic is everyone was always policing RZ’s from speculation about her weight gain then loss to making fun of her squint even before the noticeable plastic surgery to the glee when she did’ruin’ her face. And this was way before the Internet blog culture. Can’t we just leave her alone already?
I think that’s what made her disappear. She’s never seemed the most confident of people and I think she never understood the backlash against her and how personal and petty it became. I never understood it either. People turned against her so quickly and with no concrete reason like a scandal or run of horrible films.
YES people have been making fun of her natural, born-with-that-face her entire acting career. It’s always really, really bothered me.
Very true. I don’t know why that “critic” felt the need to keep tearing her down based on her appearance.
Emma Thompson looks like she’s having fun with this movie–she was the best part of the trailer.
aye, i second that. I love Emma!
I don’t understand why people make her appearance a big deal. It’s not like Renee looks like Jocelyn Wildenstein. Why can’t Bridget Jones be a modern woman who does have a few cosmetic tweaks done? I know that when I get to the point where I don’t like some things, I will have procedures done. So what?
Gleiberman needs to shut his pie hole. She had some work done. It’s her deal, and certainly not his or anyone else’s. However, they seem to think it very much is their business when they’re being so invasive into her life. If they don’t like what she has had done, then they can bypass her movies and quit making nasty comments. Cosmetic surgery really seems to set some people off. I wonder if they’re jealous because they can’t afford it themselves.
Who would be jealous about some getting plastic surgery?
Well, Gleiberman can’t simply “bypass her movies” since he’s a film critic.
@Saraya, but he’s not criticizing the work of an actress, he’s bullying her appearance and questioning her value as a result of how she looks.
@EM – YES!
That would have been a terrific plot point. Bridget is exactly the type of woman to get plastic surgery and have it go wrong.
Be fair, this article only went to print because the appearance it was critiquing was female. Wake me up when a trade publication does a piece about that time Brad Pitt resurfaced his face or how close Stallones hairline came to meeting his eyebrows or a before and after pictorial featuring Ryan Reynolds and Liam Hemsworth. How about the many hairpieces of Travolta, Affleck and Spacey? Or the botoxing of all three of these men (coincidence?). They printed this crap because they know that tearing down women for their appearance is favorite pass time and readers will defend that pass time when they are called out on it.
Preach!!!
There have been snarky articles about men with obvious surgeries though. Mickey Rourke and Val Kilmer spring to mind.
Also stories about John Travolta’s hair
Never in a industry paper like Variety.
Tom Cruise as well.
And remember Meg Ryan and Jennifer Grey… they changed their faces and couldn`t get a job anymore.
It`s not getting older, it`s changing into unrecognizable
As Luca76 rightly pointed out, those articles are in publications like Star Magazine or Hello Magazine. Variety is THE trade publication. Its target readership isnt the idle and judgemental minivan majority, its producers, casting agents, studio heads, directors et cetera. Find me a Variety think piece that names and shames all the male HGH and steroid users in Hollywood. Not even when Stallone was caught by Ausie cops flushing his HGH supply did they do an editorial of this nature. I can assure you the editors wouldnt have dared humiliate any of the many tweaked male actors in an industry paper.
Luca76, there have been articles in industry papers, and entertainment papers like Vanity Fair about Mickey Rourke’s surgeries which for the record were vanity, but not the usual type of vanity.
His surgery came about due to a misguided and failed boxing career for which he had quit Hollywood. On his return, his face was disfigured and so he went the surgery route to fix the damage. The surgeon he picked not only didn’t fix the problem, he botched the job. Mickey had another series of surgeries to fix the bad surgery. He sued the surgeon who botched his original surgeries. What you see is the best result after all that.
He isn’t and wasn’t trying to look younger.
All this was documented in industry papers and in tabloids.
He isn’t a gossip topic these days, so most people only remember the bad surgery and assume he did it to look younger or *more beautiful.
*in a wierd way, he did it to look more beautiful because he was trying to fix a disfigured face, so I guess he can be accused on that front…hohum.
Speaking of surgery that was truly about looking younger and simply ruined the face, how about Jessica Lange. Now THAT is something worth discussing, not RZ or even Jennifer Grey’s surgery.
+1,000
Tra la, tra la, and here’s a piece from March, the Daily Beast, in which a male critic is begging Clooney to keep acting because we love to see older (male) actors in films with grey (male) hair and bags and (male) eyes pouches and sags etc…..(coughmenlikeJackNicholsonPaulNewmanRobertRedfordcough)
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/03/george-clooney-don-t-let-getting-older-stop-you-from-acting.html
That’s an excellent article, Liberty. It’s always interesting to compare viewpoints – frankly, I wish that more women thought like George! They would get more out of everything, (like men do).
The fact that you know that these men have had plastic surgery proves that men’s appearances are critiqued. They get torn down also.
How about on Tom Cruise’s extensive tweaks? It’s distracting that he’s in his 50s and is trying to look in his 30s.
Of course,it’s about aging as well. If it wasn’t you’d be able to reel off the names of the great movies older actresses (and actors) are making.
Meg Ryan and Jen Gray changed tweaked their faces in an effort to keep working. It just didn’t work for out them. Because no one is ever really convinced by the new cosmetics improvements.
You can romanticize the allure of mature face all you like, but in reality women over 50 are basically invisible. You can repeat the mantra of sunscreen, sleep and hydration (which I completely recommend,) but the day will come that in spite of your effort and lack of wrinkles, your eyes will sink and look smaller, you face will lose volume and droop, your lips will thin with your eyebrows. It happens and we are in a popular culture that is in profound denial about aging. We don’t want to see older women, we don’t want to hear their stories and we’re fine with ridiculing their attempts to be more pleasing.
Jane Fonda, should give her surgeon’s number to everyone in Hollywood because she’s had several surgeries, including a full facelift and not only looks good, she still looks like herself.
Jane had a beautiful run of films (Coming Home, Julia, 9 to 5, On Golden Pond) when she was fortyish, so I think she escapes comparison to her Barbarella – Cat-Ballou self? Makes it much easier I think and I submit that she looks good and like herself, but not really younger?
But her film career went into hibernation for 15 years or so as well.
I’m 61, and I’m not invisible – I believe it now when people tell me I am beautiful. Bodies continue to give pleasure and with little to lose, but the day, I’m having the time of my life with a fantasy-worthy beautiful man who makes me swoon… I want adventures and stories to take my breathe away, and This Is One of Those!
Happy 4th of July to everyone!!!
The Original G: That is the point or should be.
Look at Kim Novak or Jessica Lange for botched full facelift surgery. They both had their surgeries as older ladies, just like Jane. Either they had terrible surgeons and or they asked the surgeons to make them look younger which botched their faces as well as changed the way they looked such that they do not look like themselves even when the results have settled.
Dear Logical LAK (with a tremendous database brain) – my only question is, “Do I runaway across the world with my Love?
Yes! Those actors’ talent has never been questioned due to the cosmetic procedures they got done. They get comments on how they look, but they never say things like “Can they still act?” which is very aggressive.
Am I the only one who doesn’t see the massive difference here? I saw it after she had it done but here, I mean … she doesn’t look like she did 15 years ago but that’s perfectly fine. Sure you can tell if you look for it but to me, it’s not distracting at all and I really thought it would be.
As for the movie, the baby thing is so old. It’s boring. Why not go in a different direction? Bridget’s work environment has the potential to fill an entire movie and make it interesting and funny. There were two movies focusing on her love life with work as the backdrop, I loved them both. Why not turn it around this time?
I had the same thought too. I was aware when it was done but it seems to have settled very nicely. It’s not like she looks Jennifer Grey different.
I don’t see a huge difference either. When she first got back on the scene after her eyelid surgery, I did notice ( and I thought she looked fine and should’ve told everybody to screw off, it was for medical reasons) , but in this trailer I think she does look like herself, and certainly not so drastically different that people wouldn’t recognize the character.
I also agree that the movie does not look very good.
With you guys all the way.
No, you’re not the only one! I thought it was just me too. If she did have work and the intent was to make her completely not squinty, it was a fail, IMO, and thank goodness. I always thought she was so pretty, and still is, smaller eyes included. Her features suit her. And I honestly don’t see much difference at all, just a woman who still looks pretty as she gets a little older.
ITA. She still looks like herself. And Diane Weist. She resembles Diane Weist.
I totally agree. She looks like herself on that mag cover and in the movie trailer. Whatever she had done settled or she stopped doing it for the movie.
I don’t think the movie looks terrible and I will certainly be in line to see it opening day. It is a ridiculous plot line since they are all “too old” for this nonsense, but if I can enjoy BJD2, then I can find something to enjoy in this one!!
Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m there to watch it. It would just have been a nice change for the third one.
I think she looks like a completely different person. I only know she’s Renee because I’m used to it now.
I don’t see a huge change either.
I don’t think she looks very different either! I just don’t see it – she still looks like Renee/Bridget to me.
Whew! Thought I was the only one. She looks older, for sure but I don’t think she looks like a different person. Granted, a lot of times when people scream “plastic surgery!” I go “where?”. So maybe I just don’t have the eyes for it.
I’m another who thinks she still looks like her own self. After the surgery, I remember photos came out and I didn’t recognize her. Now, however, she’s back to her cheeky self.
I think her eye work has settled in too, she doesn’t look so so different to me anyway.
Thank you all for saying this; I thought something was wrong with me because I didn’t think her appearance had totally changed, too. I haven’t seen many of her movies, but I’ve really enjoyed those I have.
Wish the story line were different for this movie… I know having a baby in one’s 40s isn’t as rare as some people think, but there are so many more interesting and original directions the story could have gone.
I thought I was the only one that didn’t see a big difference anymore. At first, I did see a difference in her eyes, but now it seems to have settled. She looks pretty much the same to me, albeit a bit shiny from Botox.
I love “Bridget Jones”, and will definitely go see this movie. Soooo glad that they’re not following “Mad About the Boy” and Mark Darcy lives!
I honestly thought the photos used here were Renee pre-surgery. When she first had the eye tuck (not confirmed but it was very obvious) she didn’t get away with it like most others have because it took the hooding away and opened up her eye to make it rounder, completely changing how she looked. But it seems to have settled and her hooded eyes are back, she’s squinty again, and she’s aging naturally now. That’s how it looks to me. I’m just glad she no longer has the sourpuss. Whatever she did to her lips years ago made made her purse her lips constantly, there was no natural resting state for her mouth and it was really distracting. God it would be awful if someone was writing this about my face. Fame sucks. I think Renee seems like a really nice and down to earth person.
You know, when I first heard these headlines in the press about Renee’s “shocking unrecognizable appearance” a few years ago, I went to look it up and was shocked. Shocked she looked the same to me, albeit a little older. She still looks like Renee. I don’t get it. She’s not unrecognizable to me. Whatever she has or hasn’t had done, I think she looks great, pretty much the same but older and a wonderful actress. I’m not getting the obsession over her appearance.
Me neither. I kept wondering if I was blind or crazy cause I just didn’t see the huge difference in appearance that everyone was going on about. And I’m someone who can guess the celeb just by a picture of the eyes or pic of the lips.
@ LAK
Yes, she should. I would take it. She looks great
I am ok with this movie for two reasons: I get more Colin Firth with silver strands and I can forget about what happened to Mark Darcy in the book. Ok, maybe three because Emma Thompson is my spirit animal.
I think there has been pieces about men who have had plastic surgery that changed their faces dramatically. I know much was said about Burt Reynolds in the tabs. I think it comes up when they don’t look like themselves anymore. Uma Thurman just got plastic surgery and she’s barely recognizable as herself and she was (and still is) beautiful. She had a unique look and now she looks more like everyone else. Ditto for Jennifer Grey from Dirty Dancing who fixed her nose.
I think the writer in this piece wasn’t wrong in the sense that she the star of a series of movies about a character and suddenly she doesn’t even look like the character that is very recognizable, not even an older version. For a lot of people, Bridget Jones was not just the quirky personality of the character, but Renee’s looks played into it. She didn’t look like the sleek, put-together perfection of a leading lady…Bridget worked because Renee’s looks were kind of quirky. She was pretty but not necessarily beautiful. More real. Some actors use their facial expressions and features a lot when they act and it becomes a big part of the character they are doing. Suddenly her face looks quite different and that quirkiness she had seems to be gone. That bothers some people…others, obviously, not so much. I think we’d see similar if it a male actor who was in a series and suddenly looked radically different as well, but maybe I’m crazy. I don’t think he was calling her out about doing plastic surgery to be sexist. I think he felt it hurt the movie and would disappoint many fans, himself included. Regardless, I think the movie will bomb. Honestly, I think she looks too old to be the pregnant Bridget Jones with the script they are likely to have. If that opinion makes me appear ageist, then so be it. It’s a tired old trope and if they wanted to do it, they should have done it years ago.
I hated in photos her mousy hair color compared to her shiny blonde she used to do and liked her pale compared to her tanning and kind of messy eyebrows these days, a look that seemed to happen when she fell in love with her musician boyfriend, but I saw her on Ellen and she basically looked like herself, just older, and seemed very happy. in the Bridget Jones trailer she looks like herself to me.
She has lines on her face, no filler. Her face is thinner as she’s aged compared to her round face. She had saggy lids that were probably obscuring her vision. She barely has done her eyes or botoxed them to lift them up a bit, still no noticeable eyelids. Even though it changed her look of her eyes just a bit, she was the one living with waking up to saggy lids covering her eyes as she gets older and they get worse. All the judgement.
Hmm this is misguided feminism. Renee only makes Bridget believable because of her charm. Her presence was complimented by the chubby cheeks and signature quint. Now all that is gone and she’s not able to project an older Bridget. Or Bridget died and her evil sister assumed her position?
She pretty much looks the same to me.
I know, me too. I mean, obviously she’s done work on her eyes, but they weren’t exactly wide open to begin with. I have big eyes, but my eyelids will certainly be inside my eyes by the time I’m 50. Will I shade a woman for wanting to see!?
All kidding aside, there is some terrible plastic surgery out there (Mickey Rourke, Meg Ryan), and there’s Renee, who I always recognise right away.
Yeah, she’s never looked that different to me. Never got the fuss, i have to really look to see how she looks different
Annoys me that Rene gets so much crap for here smoothing a bit here and there and Priyanka Chopra gets a total pass for a totally new nose and lips.
If Priyanka Chopra has plastic surgery then whoever did it, did an amazing job.
I thought she had started looking the same as she did previously in years past.
She did look very different when she made that one appearance a year ago or so (when her eyes looked fully open), but now her face (or at least her eyes) seem like they have gone back to their original appearance, imo.
I’ll enjoy this movie for what it is even if it won’t be anywhere near as good as the first Bridget Jones. It will be cute and Renee as Bridget will bring the laughs. I also think it is believable for her to get pregnant because she looks younger on screen. I can believe that her character is in her early 40s which is possible to have a surprise baby when you least expect it to happen.
As for her new face, she looked unrecognizable to me last year, but she doesn’t look too different in the Bridget Jones trailers. Maybe the work has settled and the makeup department did a good job of making her look like her old self. The main difference is that she didn’t gain weight for this installment.
The hell? She doesn’t look very different, just a bit older. I don’t know what OG is talking about. What a dick. Zellweger has always irritated me but cripes, leave her alone.
Nice to see so many positive comments about Renee. Not feeling BJ3 but loving that she’s back in business and hope it’s the beginning of a second wind for this sweet, kind, gifted actress.
The one positive from that Gleiberman piece of infantile and offensive crock are the comments underneath the Variety article which, for the most part, are tearing him a new one.
Interesting discussion of media coverage of female vs male surgery. That being said, I love romantic comedies, but absolutely hated the first Bridget Jones, made it through five minutes of the sequel, and have no desire to see this one. All it did for me was to devalue Colin Firth as an actor.
I’m actually excited to see this and I think it looks good. I loved the first Bridget, though not the sequel.
I was one of the ones shocked at Zellweggers face a year ago. I thought she looked like a version of Robin Wright.
But now it has settled, or something, and she just looks like an older Bridget. Her real face and eyes are back.
No one else could play Bridget but Zellwegger, thicker or thinner, its still Bridget. I love her in this role.
If this writer isn’t being sexist he’d better write about Kenny Loggins at the Capital Fourth (now on PBS). Dude is not even recognizable!
I discussed with this a (female) friend who had a very strong negative reaction to the article – she felt it wasn’t the place of a man to criticize her. And I agree to a large extent, but I did counter that celebrity is a two-edged sword and to benefit from it means you have up accept the downsides. The discussion around women has to change because we definitely don’t have the same exacting standards of male beauty (which is what drives the plastic surgery industry), but if you’re in the limelight and have work done, the reality is that people will have that discussion regardless. I dunno, the author needs to take a damn seat, but I’m not surprised the article happened, yeah?
RZ is perfectly recognizable, and still adorable. She just looks a bit older.
Now, no mention of Dempsey’s nose job? Obviously the VF writer never saw Can’t Buy Me Love.
I think she looks good, her face has settled. An actor’s face is usually their trademark, talent be damned, so tweaking is risky (this mostly applies to women obviously). So, to me, talking about their looks comes with the territory even though it IS often body shaming in nature, perhaps unavoidably.
I said it back then and I’ll say now: I have those eyes – deep set, heavy lidded – surprise, surprise, they sag and block your vision. It’s a b—- move to pick on someone for changing their appearance so they can see.
Please note that in New York journalism at a certain time circles OG was a well-known swordsman who did not treat women well. Surprised Not.