From Brooke Shields To Bridget Jones
Should we be issued a mid-life blueprint to getting older? If so, I think it's up to Brooke Shields and Bridget Jones to pass me the handbook...
You know how much I love it when I get to unearth and dust off an 80s and 90s relic from the Hollywood back-lot and show her off like an Antiques Roadshow super-find? Well, this week that national treasure is Brooke Shields because 59-year-old Brooke has just written her fourth book and it is marvellously titled: Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed To Get Old.
Who allowed Brooke to call it this?! Trick question! I jest with you. No one! No one told her. You cannot – I repeat cannot – tell a Woman Of A Certain Age what the fork to do. She will do whatever she likes. Its why Nic Kidman drank the milk. Its why I write the newsie. Its why Brooke gave her book this marvellous title. Its why Cher dates 38-year-old Alexander Edwards. Its why Cameron Diaz now makes wine, not movies. It’s probably even why Melania just keeps really schtum and wears crazy hats and scowls a lot in front of the press corps. We will not be bossed around.
And Brooke’s book is all about this… It’s about how, after being told exactly what to do and treated like a mini adult her entire childhood and well into her 30s, she finally found her mojo in her 40s after having kids and, well, frankly, not giving a hoot. She writes:
“I remember thinking in my 40s: this isn’t old at all! This is fun! … I felt mature yet still playful;. I was firing on all cylinders, and at the risk of sounding like Maria Von Trapp, the world seemed full of possibilities.” Same, Brooke, same.
“Aging is is a journey full of contradictions, especially in America",” she continues. “Its humbling and surprising and empowering and daunting and liberating… [yet] a March 2023 cover story of the American Psychological Association’s Monitor On Psychology describes ageism in America as “one of the last socially accepted prejudices.” Urgh, right, Brooke?!
“Women in the 40s and 50s are treated like we’re invisible, even though we’re one of the fastest growing demographics in the country,” she goes on referencing the USA - a growing demographic with a net worth of $19 trillion, btw. Generally speaking, she says she feels more confident at 59 and more comfortable in her skin - even if it is sagging. Her words, not mine!
You know which other legend is A) part of this demographic, B) totally au courant and C) thoroughly fantastic and has – hell yes to the directors and geniuses BTS! – been allowed to get old? Bridget Forking Jones! I’m nothing like Bridget Jones… ish. Only if you’re my age, you will know that we all carry a little something of Bridget Jones in us. Bridget Jones’ Diary was canonical.
And it’s not just because we would all still die a thousand deaths to be fought over by Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, at any age. Reindeer jumper? Sign me up. Cruel Japanese ex-wife? I’m game. Commenting on my naughty skirt? Go on then… Nice boys don’t kiss like that? Oh yes they do! Oopsie daisy, I digress.
The original Bridget Jones’ Diary is a time capsule to 90s life and love, no social media, no location apps and no HR department… Publishing meant super-cute outfits, whip-smart colleagues, wine at lunch time, wine at launch events and wine with your friends later. There’s a reason why the wine bar became A Thing in the 90s… It was terribly sophisticated, and we all loved perching on stools around an up-cycled wine barrel, gossiping over copious bottles of dubious provenance and a single packet of crisps. Or a bowl of olives if you were feeling flush.
Tell me we all did this?
This month, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy released. Mercifully it is based on Helen Fielding’s book and is not a tired Hollywood sequel. Bridget is back as a proper, 50-something grown-up. She’s as mussed and flighty as ever, but also not. Like her, her friends are older, not entirely wiser but still a tight circle of confidantes. Her exes ditto. Her career ditto. She’s lived a life.
Could you have any idea how thrilled I was to see a real Bridget Jones? No slippery skin as smooth as glass; no freckles lasered into oblivion; no wrinkles blitzed from the canvas? She’s all real – fine lines, crinkles and chaos. She still wears the chinziest outfits - but you might also want to buy them immediately. She lives in a fabulously cosy chic house. It’s a bit of a tip but equally, it is infinitely move-inable…
She is so real that I was completely besotted anew. Because The Hollywood Powers didn’t fuck it up. She’s 50. She’s not a total mess, she has her shit together. She’s 50. She is also a total mess and doesn’t have her shit together. She is both. Simultaneously. Like the rest of us.
The Smug Married of her single years have become the parenting bores of her later life. That tracks too. Her work is chock-full of older women camaraderie - check. Her fun friends are still sneaking her away for a sneaky celebratory cocktail – tick. The cocktail she quaffs in this film should make you weep. Message me when you see it!
Her boobs defs still look like they could be real. And she still has her trusty granny pants. And Daniel Cleaver is her children’s wicked godfather. You will be crying and laughing at the same time throughout the entire shindig of a film! It is blissfully cathartic.
Also, it snubs the nose, like Brooke Shields does, at opinions on what research has dubbed Invisible Women aka the mid-lifers and beyond. Hideous catch-all. Bridget, for all her messy realness, is deffos not invisible. Not to the thoroughly lovely wildlife enthusiast of Hampstead Heath and not to her kids’ lovely teacher either, thus making her a poster child for 50-something women everywhere. No dubious dick pics on Tinder for our Bridge.
There’s a scene where the gloriously boyish, ridiculously hot Hampstead boy dives into a pool to save a dog - watch the trailer snippet here if you haven’t seen the film - and I dare you to argue that Bridget’s friends reacted any differently to how yours would have… Hysterical! Squealing with unbridled, lusty delight at seeing such a nubile young bod in the flesh! Hysterical.
Turns out, that just like 1997, I still want to be Bridget Jones. Yes, say it with me: “I like you Bridget, just the way you are.”