There are few things more depressing than a lousy film based on a good book. On the other hand, Bridget Jones's Diary -- the movie -- is actually much funnier than Helen Fielding's best-selling book. This is something. No bollocks.

Despite the big kerfuffle over the casting of an American to play the veddy English Miss Jones, Renee Zelleger is so endearing in the role and so inhabits the character that she is largely responsible for everything that goes right.

Bridget Jones is a 30-something single. If you have read Fielding's book, then you know Bridget's diary is a collection of cruel and unusually funny statements about self, search for self-improvement, search for love, search for control. Bridget keeps a running commentary on her life in her diary, and also obsessively records her weight, how much she drinks and smokes, what parties she has attended, and so forth. Independence is good, but where is love? Etc.

Our Miss Jones works for a publishing company where her boss is the randy and attractive Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). The film opens with her successful run at Cleaver, but he eventually breaks her heart. The cad!

Then there is Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), a deeply serious young barrister who seems to have a large pickle up an important orifice. Worse yet, he is someone Bridget's meddling mother believes would be perfect for her.

Mom is played by Gemma Jones and dad is played by Jim Broadbent. Also in the cast are Embeth Davidtz, Sally Phillips, Shirley Henderson, James Callis and Honor Blackman. Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes and other authors appear as themselves.

What makes Bridget Jones's Diary so hilarious is its depiction of adult life, including silly sex scenes, bad language, overindulgence in food, drink and cigarettes, poor judgment when it comes to men or women, serious family chaos, work disasters, cooking fiascos, underwear crises and the like.

Between pratfalls and one-liners, Zellweger is charming and entirely appealing as the heroine. Her pursuit of thin, rich and married, exaggerated as it may be, is so funny that any viewer could identify -- male or female -- and Zellweger brings a specific sparkle to the role that makes her endlessly watchable.

Nobody hates romantic comedy more than we do, but Bridget Jones's Diary is a huge exception. It's funny and smart and very quick. Many thanks to co-writers Richard Curtis (Four Weddings And A Funeral; Notting Hill) Andrew Curtis (BBC's Middlemarch) and Helen Fielding for a delicious screenplay. (More on: Bridget Jones's Diary).

(This film is rated AA)

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