Textual Analysis on Bridget Jones's Diary [Romantic Comedy]

Bridget Jones’s Diary
The opening of Bridget Jones is effective because it engages the audience with the humour from the beginning. It begins showing us a ‘winter wonderland’ picturesque scene already using a convention of a romantic comedy being set some where romantic. The establishing shots allow us to see the snow and the house of where the first scene is going to take place. The pan movement allows us to follow the character as she walks towards the house, it has a running commentary throughout the beginning of the scene allow us to hear what the character is thinking at the time of things as though we are in her head this is due to it being based on someone writing their diary. When she enters the house another cheery Christmas love songs play in the background, there is an high angled shot which looks as if it’s shot from the top of the stairs allowing the audience to look down and see what is going on. A mixture of MS and MCU shots are used in the various conversations the editing is made to be invisible to allow it to flow and show that she is socializing around the room. A full length shot is used to highlight the embarrassing outfit she is forced to wear, when she is introduced to her future love interest which is played by Colin Firth which if we didn’t know anything about the film we would know that it’s a Romantic Comedy because he is in it. There is an ECU on the reindeer jumper he is being forced to wear and here is our ‘meet-cute’ situation a must convention in a romantic comedy, the conversation is awkward as the Bridget starts to ramble making herself embarrassed, later in the scene when she over hears Mark talking to his mom, she pretends not to have heard the mean sayings and walks towards the camera as it follows her it then uses a freeze frame to highlight the moment in which the character narrates and then fades into another wintery scene.