I have just finished watching Bridget Jones's Diary for about the zillionth time, and each time something else bothers me about the movie. The first time I saw it, it was the fact that I thought Renee Zellweger wasn't quite heavy enough for the character. Having been 140+ pounds (many many moons ago, I'm sad to say), I know that she would have been quite a bit chubbier at that weight. Unless, of course, she's not vertically challenged, but anyway. I think there are far too many women in this world worried about just five to ten pounds anyhow, and the whole weight issue has gotten rather obsessive.

But this time around I ignored the weight issue and just enjoyed the movie. By the way, did you know there is NOTHING on tv on a summer Sunday night? Don't tell me about the Fox lineup -- it's summer and therefore rerun season. Blecch. So when I saw Bridget Jones's Diary on Starz, I decided I had nothing better to watch, and I could watch as I finished up my housework. Hrmm... I forgot to finish my housework. *sigh* Oh well. :o)

However, have you ever noticed the extreme plot similarity to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice??? I mean, one of the main characters is even named Darcy in Austen's novel!!! I realize that most people who watched and read Bridget Jones probably aren't the type to read Jane Austen, but it's a shame -- she's a great authoress.

But the similarities are frightening. I don't blame Helen Fielding or think she's done anything wrong -- Jane Austen wrote before 1820, so I think there is no copyright infringement there. :o) However, the basic plotline is the same.

Bridget Jones's Diary: Bridget has a fling with Daniel Cleaver, who's told her a cock-and-bull story about Mark Darcy running off with Cleaver's fiancee, so Cleaver gets Bridget's sympathy. She takes his side in confrontations with Darcy without asking his side, and feels that, as she writes in her diary, that Darcy is rude and aloof and in general not a nice guy. At the end, all comes out and it is known that in truth Cleaver has boinked Darcy's wife (a bit more serious than a fiancee), and she has left him. Bridget falls in love with Darcy, and they live happily ever after.

And to anyone who hasn't seen the movie and is now pissed off at me for spoiling the plot, tough. The movie's been out for quite some time -- you had your chance to see it.

Pride and Prejudice: Elizabeth Bennet meets both Darcy and Wickham around the same time, but Wickham, being much more outgoing and convivial, gains her preference from the first. He tells her this cock-and-bull story about how Darcy has bilked him out of his rightful inheritance and that he now has to live on a pittance to survive. Elizabeth believes Wickham, and finds Darcy to be quite rude, aloof, and in general not a nice guy. Eventually the full story comes out, that instead of Wickham being denied his inheritance, he has instead truly squandered his money and wanted more from Darcy's family in trying to elope with Darcy's fifteen-year-old sister, who is due to inherit thirty thousand pounds. In the end, Wickham shows his true colors by eloping with Elizabeth's younger sister Lydia, whom he is then forced to marry, although he had only the intention of ruining her virtue, and Elizabeth and Darcy realize their feelings for one another and live happily ever after.

Sound familiar?! They always say there is nothing new under the sun, and I suppose that is true. But it's amazing that Jane Austen is so popular nowadays. You see the above example, but did you know that the movie Clueless is a twentieth-century modernization of Jane Austen's Emma??

Jane Austen really ought to be read more. She's not dry at all -- it's not like reading Dickens, who was born not long before Jane Austen died. Austen has really a fresh voice, and even though most of her subject matter gets repeated, it's a fun read each time. Too bad she died at a relatively young age; she didn't leave us much to read.