Bridget Jones Diary

Titles and Title fonts: The titles are white and written in a curly font that looks like a girls handwriting. This represents the film as a diary and being written as the film progresses. The main title however is in a bold long font, which is like the opening page of a book, which entices and audience to carry on watching and to "read" this diary.


Set: the setting is an apartment which is quite messy and small. This tells the audience that Bridget lives on her own and therefore doesn't need to tidy up. This will relate to a lot of females who live on their own who will watch the film as they know how it is to live in these situation and the different ways of coping with having no one else in the flat to answer to. This relates to the theme of Rom-Com's as the main character is usually a single female who finds love over the course of the film, but to start off they have to be in some dilemma which in this case is loneliness. You can tell that she is the sole occupant as the sofa shown is small and she has no pictures of anyone but her on her mantelpiece.


Costume: the main character Bridget is wearing a long pair of pajamas. The fact that she is wearing long flannel pyjamas gives the impression that she does not feel sexy and which is why she is alone. She doesn't appear to be going anywhere over the course of the opening. This tells the audience that she has no purpose in life at the moment. The film will show her becoming important. This makes everything that will happen later in the film seem even more fulfilling because she gets a purpose. The audience sees her as vulnerable at the beginning and then sees her blossom.



Characters: we are introduced to the title character of Bridget who is sitting alone in her apartment singing to herself. This shows how low her life is at the moment. She is an anti heroine as she is not the dashingly beautiful woman who we see in romance films. This automatically tells us that this is not a romance but a Rom-Com which is out of the norm love. This allows the audience to ask how she is going to fall in love and how this is portrayed as a romantic comedy. The fact that she is over exaggeratedly singing to the song in the background makes the audience see her as a light hearted character who although is somewhat depressed can still have fun in her own company. We also have to ask why she is so unhappy with her own life. You get some clues earlier in the film but still ask this and what she is going to do to improve her life over the course of the film.



Props: The answering machine used in this opening portrays how lonely Bridget is. A cut away shot of it is used saying that she has no messages. By using the answer machine showing that no one has tried to contact her reveals that she is lonely in her life. The audience will wonder why this was shown, as we can understand that she was lonely to start with but will empathise how lonely she really is. One reason why they show this cut away is because they want to show that she is trying to overcome her loneliness as she has a way of keeping contact with people although unused. Another reason is to show a partial moment of loneliness and so might not be portrayed throughout the whole film as although she has no messages it shows that people will try to contact her later or have done earlier in her life.



Story: Our basic grasp of the story line is that this is a character who is out of love and is trying to turn her life around. The movie being called Bridget Jones Diary is that although she feels lonely at this point she also feels that her life if important as she needs to have a record of it on paper. This gives us mixed messages about the story line as it could be about her finding importance or it could be about her finding love as although the story line is about her finding both the audience will question which one it is at the beginning of the film.



Genre: The genre of the film is a romantic comedy. We can tell from the opening that this is not just a romance as she acts overly exaggerated and comically to let us know that there are elements of humour in the film. Another clue that shows this is a romantic comedy is that no love interest is shown straight away and so the quest for love is not straight forward as in a romance but is subjectable to be changed for humorous effect.



Music: The song playing in the background is "All by Myself" by Celine Dion. This makes the opening make more sense of her lonlieness as Bridget sings along with the lines "all by myself, don't want to be all by myself" showing she is lonely but does not want to be. It also gives us a clear understanding of what the movie will be about as she will try to find love over the course of the film. It also answers quite a lot of questions as it clearly gives a description of Bridgets life at the moment that the song is playing, it leaves the audience not having to question the situation.