Bridget Jones, the widow

Went to see it with friends, including three other widows. Would recommend

I’m the same demographic as Bridget Jones. Widowed, menopausal, two children, living in London. I don’t have a glamorous job, my flat is half the size of her kitchen, and my children are older. But I wanted to know how much of my life I’d see in the cinema. Here I am in the Daily Telegraph with other widows talking about what it’s really like.

I knew the basic plot, so went with tissues and chocolate. It was a beautiful experience, lots of tears, and laughs too. Being there with a group of friends with a whole range of experiences of loss and love is one of the things that made it so beautiful. I was wondering how they’d manage the depth and complexity of her grief, but knowing that the writer, Helen Fielding is a widow, made me think it would be ok.

I knew it would look good too, because my fantastically talented friend Andrea Matheson was supervising art director. And she did such a briliant job.

Crying over you

Crying is powerful. Exhausting, exposing, vulnerable. Necessary. I’m always going to be sad that my husband died, that my kids lost their father. Sad doesn’t even begin to describe it. I cried a lot, at the depiction of widow moments in this film, and I really felt the truth of those moments.

Mark Darcy, Bridget’s dead husband, appears in the film a few times. We see her visiting somewhere familiar, with his ghost as a companion. Seeing him at bedtime, and at a school concert. This has been so true for me. This aching for them to be there, to be a witness to this family that they once had a starring role in. Your memory of them is so strong that it is more surprising that they aren’t there. You get really used to the ghost. I love James. He loves me. But his current atomic format is not ideal.

One of the threads of the movie is about science, and how we understand death. Made me think of this beautiful Nikita Gill poem

Bridget goes to a dinner, early on in the movie. It’s funny. All the couples that you knew, still couples, wondering when you might get yourself together. Because you’re the one with all the change going on. You’re the event. It’s so one-sided. Sometimes, when faced with your old world, but with your new status, despite love and support and best intentions, it feels so exposing.

Love letters

Writing letters to your dead partner. I loved this scene. I have a book where I write letters to James. I would recommend it to anyone grieving. Write to the person you lost. It is so powerful. I write to him about big things: new job, new lover, financial decision. I also write to him about the colour of the sky today and the mug I was drinking tea out of. Because he knows so much about me. He understands all of the references. Writing to him helps me make sense of things.

Looking at the last things, the mementos: reviewing the circumstances or timeline of the death. Its loss and trauma in your head and heart forever. For me it feels easier if I can reexamine it. Think about what I was feeling that day. Or what the weather was like. Bridget has the news to watch about how Darcy died. I have memories, WhatsApp messages. I don’t think of this as wallowing, or unhelpful. I need to be able to narrate what happened.

Magical memories

There’s a scene where Bridget holds up his glasses. His glasses, which she’s kept in a box of his things. Glasses he wore everyday, a huge part of his life. The way he saw the world. The way he saw you, through those lenses. Like part of a magic spell, a thing the lost person touched, everyday. Touching them now is an invocation, takes you to a place where you can imagine them so powerfully it’s like a threshold between this world, where they don’t exist, and that world, where these were just everyday objects, worn by your everyday human.

Ingredients for a spell, to magic James back to life for a few tiny moments. To let me feel how it felt when he was in the world again

Bridget’s Jones’ children are young. The actors are astonishingly good. The delightful chaos of the movie feels like the TV show Outnumbered. She worries about them, all the time. What are they feeling? Is she doing enough? What can she do? Watching your children adapt to life without one parent is heartbreaking. I also constantly feel lucky that we have each other and share all of James’ love. And the movie does capture something of that.

Help from your friends

Bridget Jones gets help. From doctors, teachers, friends, work colleagues. She asks for help, and she gives it to others. Her networks are extraordinary and she has an apparently limitless budget of course. But I was pleased to see how much of a group effort so much of her life is now. As I watched the film with a group of friends, with tissues, and hand holding, and space for all of our tears during and afterwards.

It’s a funny film, with lots of strong female characters, brilliantly acted. Also Hugh Grant in a hospital gown and more men getting their kit off than women (always a win from me). It is tender and has funny dialogue. References to all the other movies. Comedy intimacy. Short skirts, hearts and flowers. And fantasy millionaire’s London. In the full cinema I was in there was laughter, tears and applause.

I felt like some of the scenes from my life had been captured. That is how it feels, loving a ghost, being out of control, bearing the unbearable and wishing for the impossible.