6A — Monday, September 26, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
FILM REVIEW
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
When bae impregnates you.
Initially, prospects for the third
installment in the Bridget Jones
franchise seemed slim. The open-
ing scene feels like
déjà vu, recalling
the whiny self-pity
that characterized
Bridget in the ear-
lier movies. Sepa-
rated
from
old
beaus Mark Darcy
and Daniel Cleav-
er for five years,
Bridget
Jones
(Renée Zellweger, “Jerry Magu-
ire”), sits solo on her sofa, blaring
“All By Myself” as she blows out a
candle on her 43rd birthday.
But then she voices what we all
want to say. “Fuck off!” she shouts,
switching the channel to House of
Pain’s “Jump Around” and wildly
dancing and lip-syncing in her
bedroom. And with that, the tone
is set for a surprisingly funny romp
through the uncharted territory
that is unconventionally-led mid-
dle-aged life. Her bumbling antics
tamed by the years, Bridget now
works as a producer at a television
news show with her best friend.
Soon, she finds herself pregnant
and wondering who the father
is: the hip American dating web-
site mogul Jack Qwant (Patrick
Dempsey, “Grey’s Anatomy”), or
the very stoic, very English Mark
Darcy (Colin Firth, “The King’s
Speech”) — an increasingly impor-
tant question once she finds herself
falling for both.
Bridget
retains
just
enough
irreverence
to
make her and her group of
rabble-rousing friends feel
refreshing. She battles the
realities of growing older,
learning to work with a
new, younger boss and the
“bearded hipsters” that
helm her show’s rebrand-
ing and showing up at a
music festival in kitten heels with
a rolling suitcase in tow. The inter-
generational comedy feels slightly
stiff, but still merits laughs, never
reaching wine-mom-on-Facebook
level out of touch.
The shining supporting cast is
the heart of the movie. Her wise-
cracking
gynecologist
(Emma
Thompson, “Saving Mr. Banks”) is
the comedic star, helping Bridget
balance the two-father dilemma
she strings along. Firth’s expert
reprisal of Darcy shines, his long-
standing work with the character
resulting in a wealth of emotions
simmering behind guarded eyes.
Gemma Jones (“You Will Meet a
Tall Dark Stranger”) and Jim Broad-
bent (“Iris”) return to play her par-
ents campaigning for public office in
a more progressive era. A cameo by
Ed Sheeran and a Pussy Riot-esque
protest group add just enough silli-
ness to the mix.
Now, Bridget’s concerns actu-
ally feel validated. In previous
films, Bridget’s character felt like
a caricature of single woman-
hood — self-pity without improve-
ment and clumsiness pushed to
the extreme for quirk factor alone.
Rather
than
bemoaning
being
alone, she struggles to figure out
which of her suitors is a better fit
for her. Darcy’s aloofness once felt
charming, but now that he’s older,
Bridget expresses concern that he
can’t offer the emotional support
she needs. Instead of expecting a
knight in shining armor to solve
her problems, she looks inward to
bettering herself and focuses on
what’s best for her baby.
In a particularly heart-wrench-
ing scene, she sobs to the baby in
her belly, “I’m sorry. I promised I
would get this sorted out before
you came, and I didn’t. But we
can figure it out.” It’s a sight we’ve
seen before: Bridget soaking wet
in the rain, wallowing in her self-
created downfall after losing her
phone, keys and bag. But despite
endless weakly formed promises,
this one feels genuine. Three films
later, we finally want to root for
her happily-ever-after, because for
once, she’s the one creating it.
Bridget’s bombshell ‘Baby’
VANESSA WONG
Daily Arts Writer
Third film finally gives Bridget the agency she deserves
B
“Bridget Jones’s
Baby”
Rave & Quality 16
Universal Pictures
“Please tell me you’re seeing
this, too.”
Rami Malek’s tongue-in-cheek
reference
during
his
Emmy
Award
accep-
tance speech for
“Mr. Robot” was
quite
prescient,
as
it
turned
out. The finale,
which
techni-
cally aired in two
parts over two
weeks, revealed
itself to be just
like the rest of
this season: intentionally vague,
constantly interrogating its own
internal reality and, unfortunate-
ly, more than a little inaccessible.
One would be hard-pressed
to summarize just what, exactly,
happened during season two of
“Mr. Robot.” Sure, the show’s
most prominent merits — atmo-
sphere, performances, character-
ization — often overshadow its
plot, but it’s tough to stay rapt and
invested during a show in which
even the most crucial narrative
threads are teased out in the most
opaque ways.
Season two of “Mr. Robot”
has provoked a muted response
compared to the enthusiastic
acclaim engendered by its first;
comparisons have been drawn
to Damon Lindelof’s (“The Left-
overs”) “Lost.” That show, too,
was defined by its moody, surreal
atmosphere and was heavily inter-
ested in asking more questions
than it answered. “Mr. Robot,”
however, has the additional bur-
den of its background as a show
about hacking. This baggage
makes the show more “realistic,”
but it also means its creator, Sam
Esmail (“Comet”), must explain
himself a bit further. Hacker cul-
ture (a phrase I hope to never use
again) is esoteric and uncharted
narrative territory for most of pop
culture, and packaging the more
intriguing bits of exposition in a
quick shot of, say, trash bags piling
up on a New York street, doesn’t
do as much of the heavy-lifting as
it should.
Perhaps this criti-
cism is a bit harsh;
there is, of course, fun
in not knowing every
little detail of a show.
Being strung along by
talented writers who
know what they’re
doing is one of TV’s
greatest pleasures. But
the issues with this
finale — and, by exten-
sion, this season as a whole — are
less about minute plot details and
more about general narrative
payoff. Season two confirmed
“Mr. Robot” as a series concerned
with character over plot: we see
Darlene’s stunned reaction for
an uncomfortable length before
we’re shown just how much the
FBI knows, and it’s Elliot’s face,
lit up by a computer screen dis-
playing the plot details we so des-
perately crave, that the camera
lingers on. But it comes off as a bit
hypocritical when, after focusing
so intensely on the paths these
characters have taken this sea-
son, the finale’s closing 15 minutes
raised an infinite number of ques-
tions about the plot: What has
Tyrell been up to all season? What
secret does Tyrell know about
Elliot? What have Whiterose and
Price been plotting? How does
Angela tie into all of this? We have
to care about the CTO guy again?
Meanwhile, only one question
pertains to our lead character:
just how unreliable of a narrator
is Elliot? These questions are fas-
cinating and potent, but they arise
at the frustrating expense of any
sort of satisfying conclusion to the
past 12 episodes.
Yet, there’s still much to be
intrigued by in “Mr. Robot” ’s idio-
syncratic finale. Esmail’s Hercu-
lean task of writing and directing
every episode of the season pro-
duced some admittedly self-indul-
gent stretches as well as many
undeniably brilliant flourishes
of creativity. Specifically, Angela
and Whiterose’s slow-burning,
Lynchian conversation in the first
part of the finale is delightfully
strange and off-kilter, suggesting
a tantalizing larger mythology for
the series going forward. Grace
Gummer’s (“The Newsroom”)
Dom was the season’s most suc-
cessful new creation, and her
interrogation of Darlene was the
true highlight of the final episode.
And Malek’s performance during
his climactic confrontation with
Mr. Robot and Tyrell is, as always,
incredible.
As a whole, though, it’ll be hard
to judge where season two of “Mr.
Robot” stands when the show
is over. From a purely aesthetic
point of view, it’s hard to argue
against the cohesion and confi-
dence of season two’s masterful
marriage of visuals and audio,
even if they are, yes, especially
self-serious. But this was also the
season in which a number of nar-
rative gambles — like the delayed
“big reveal” in the first half of
the season — simply didn’t work.
Compared to its explosive first
season, “Mr. Robot” this year was
almost underwhelming. Is that
the point, though? Are we now
being ushered into an era of “Mr.
Robot” in which the plot is almost
perfunctory, and Elliot’s head is
now the most volatile setting on
TV? That’s a bit unnerving, to be
honest; the best episode of this
season, “Successor,” abandoned
Elliot entirely. But the show’s web
of plot is expanding just as our
principals find the walls closing
in on them. One can only hope
Esmail finds intriguing and suc-
cessful ways of exploiting that
dichotomy in the coming seasons.
NABEEL CHOLLAMPAT
Daily Arts Writer
‘Mr. Robot’ continues to be cryptic
Second season finale of smash hit provokes muted response
TV REVIEW
B-
Mr. Robot
Two-Part Finale
Wednesdays at 10
p.m.
USA