Bridget Jones's Diary

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.

Bridget Jones’s Diary feels like the ultimate New Year’s movie as it follows Bridget Jones’s journey of reinvention, which unsurprisingly doesn’t go as planned. I wanted to do things a little differently this week in honor of the upcoming new year. Instead of analyzing the film, I want to present my main takeaways and offer some advice based on what Bridget Jones learns.

New Year’s Resolutions Are Overrated

Bridget Jones’s Diary. 2001. Miramax.

Bridget Jones’s Diary kicks off at Bridget’s mother’s New Year’s party, where she’s insulted by her future romantic prospect, Mark Darcy. Later, as she cries on the couch in her penguin pajamas listening to Jamie O’Neal’s rendition of “All By Myself,” she realizes she needs to make a major change in her life. Bridget wants to lose weight, quit smoking, drink less, and be in a romantic relationship by next year. These are pretty common New Year’s resolutions, but like most, they don’t really work out. I stand behind Bridget’s goal to stop smoking and limit her drinking. I think taking care of your health is very important, and I can see why that’s a category she would want to improve. I don’t, however, support her reasoning.

All of Bridget’s New Year’s resolutions are based on what other people think of her, not what’s actually best for her. Her goal of losing weight is especially ridiculous, but not uncommon for the time the film was released. If you know what Renée Zellweger looked like in 2001 when Bridget Jones’s Diary premiered, you’d know how insane it is for her to be considered fat. Though in the 2000s, anyone over 90 pounds was considered overweight. Sadly, 2025 has adopted some of the same standards, and I think we need to kick them to the curb in 2026. When you’re making a decision for yourself and your life, it should be solely based on your own desires.

We’re led to believe we’ll be happy when we just change this one thing about ourselves, but that always spirals into needing to change one thing after another, and it never results in satisfaction. If you’re making any improvements in 2026, make sure you’re doing it for yourself, not for everyone else. To me, New Year’s Resolutions in general are a little overrated. There’s nothing wrong with setting goals or wanting a fresh start in the new year, but there’s also nothing wrong with deciding to change nothing about yourself or your life. You can choose to improve yourself and your life at anytime throughout the year; it doesn’t have to be January 1st.

You’re not a failure if you don’t start the year off on the right foot; you can always start over at any point. If you reach May and decide there are some things you’d like to switch up, then you can make a resolution then, too. I also think we need to get off the hamster wheel of constantly needing to improve ourselves, and accept that maybe there’s nothing wrong with us at all, and we’re perfectly fine the way we are. I know it benefits a lot of people if we all think there’s something wrong with us and we need to overconsume more products to make ourselves better, but it would benefit us if we stopped thinking this way.

For the new year, I want to read more, watch more movies, stick to my daily pilates routine, catch up on some TV shows I fell behind on, and spend more time doing hobbies I enjoy like ice skating and playing the guitar. None of this is necessarily life-changing, but things I know will bring me more joy throughout my days, especially in the winter. I think setting smaller goals is the way to go because they’re easier to stick to. You don’t need to make a life-altering change to have a good year. Doing things that make you happy instead of setting goals to impress others is the best way to take advantage of the year ahead of you. (Read Juno Kelly’s newsletter On Personal Branding for more.)

Stop Pressuring Yourself To Be In A Relationship

Bridget Jones’s Diary. 2001. Miramax.

Bridget Jones is 32 and single, which is an absolute nightmare for her. From my perspective, she’s in her prime and has plenty of time to find a romantic partner. Luckily, things have changed a lot lately in the dating world. I’ve seen multiple articles in 2025 discussing the growing importance of platonic friendships and how many people are turning to their friends for connection rather than searching for a partner. I’ve always been an advocate for treating your friendships as if they’re as important as romances because they are. You will never be lonely if you are surrounded by good people and if you have a good relationship with yourself. We’re also living in a completely different reality from our ancestors.

“Perhaps despite appearances, I like you. Very much,”-Mark Darcy, Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Women no longer have to seek a partner for financial stability because we can build our own careers and earn our own money. Therefore, we have the privilege of being more particular about who we bring into our lives. It’s becoming more common for women to be single these days without any shame, and I wish Bridget had had the outlook that a lot of women in their late 20s and 30s have now. You are not an old maiden at 32, and you are not worthless because you’re single. A relationship is not something to rush into, and when you are desperate to get into one, you often end up with the wrong person. The idea that you are somehow incomplete or lesser than because you don’t have a partner is ridiculous.

Being in a relationship is not going to magically improve your life, as Bridget seems to think it is. But because she’s so obsessed with this idea, she ends up in a pretty messy dynamic with her boss that ends with her finding out that he’s been cheating on her the whole time. Luckily, that hurt propels her forward in her career, but in the end, she chooses to be with Mark despite initially disliking him. I don’t think Bridget should have ended up with either guy; she should have embraced her solitude.

I’m not even sure that she really liked Mark that much, but she was so set on her New Year’s resolution that she would have dated anyone—my advice: don’t follow in her footsteps. You are worth it, and your life is worth it, entirely separate from any relationship you may or may not have. If you want to set a goal of falling in love for the new year, fall in love with yourself, because, as they say, that is the longest relationship you will ever have.

Always Keep A Diary

Bridget Jones’s Diary. 2001. Miramax.

The one thing I do agree with from Bridget’s New Year’s plan is keeping a diary, even if what she wrote about Mark almost ended things before they began. I think it’s beneficial to record your feelings because it helps you process them. It’s also fun to look back on what you’ve written at the end of the year and see everything you’ve experienced and how far you’ve come. Journaling could look like venting out all your anger or sadness to get it out of your system. It can also look like writing out the more confusing parts of life to better understand them.

“After all, it’s only a diary. Everyone knows diaries are just... full of crap,”-Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones’s Diary.

However, I also think it’s important to write down the things that are going right; the best days of the year, the fun memories you made with your friends, any accomplishments, even the smallest ones like waking up early or staying off social media all day. Sometimes the best way to improve yourself and have a better year is to appreciate all that’s good in your life, rather than focusing on and picking apart what you don’t like. If you do have any New Year’s goals, I would love to hear them, but remember not to beat yourself up; you can choose to start over or stay the same at any point in time.