6 Reworkings Of Pride And Prejudice (That Are Better Than Pride And Prejudice And Zombies)

2. Bridget Jones's Diary

Helen Fielding's chick lit epistolary romance would be one of the popular icons of the form even if it didn't liberally borrow from one of the most popular romances of them all. Fielding structures her narrative around a Pride And Prejudice-esque romantic triangle between the caddish ersatz Wickham Daniel Cleaver and the awkward and slightly pompous literally-just-given-the-same-surname Mark Darcy. It was inspired by the then airing Andrew Davies adaptation of the novel for the BBC, one of the most popular TV period dramas of all time, and the film adaptation decided to really focus on this element. Colin Firth essentially reprises his role as Darcy in the BBC series to play Bridget's stuffy lawyer love interest Darcy. In probably his best performance since the last Darcy, Firth balances giving basically the same performance with a willingness to send up his association with that one part, and in so doing managed to escape it and move onto bigger things. Fielding wrote the script with Davies himself and master of the awkward Brit rom-com Richard Curtis, a dream set up happy both to play up the Austen parallels and capture Jones' distinctly 90s singleton voice. The choice of director in Fielding's friend Sharon Maguire (fictionalised as Shazzer in the book and played in the film by Sally Phillips) also helps get the tone right, but the choice of a skinny American to play Bridget was met with rather more controversy. Fortunately, Renee Zellweger's performance was spot on, picking up a rare Oscar nod for a lighthearted romantic comedy. Not only is it hard now to imagine anyone else as Bridget, it's equally tricky to picture any other role that Zellweger has ever fit better.