It's not a perfect movie and that is fine because I'm not reviewing it. We talk about movies and how they makes us feel. We rate aspects of the films, not how good the films are, but how well it represents those aspects. See The Stitch Count.
Now that the disclaimer is clear, I enjoyed watching Bridget Jones's Diary far more than I did the first time. It will always be a factor, especially in instances of my past, my being trans. There is no escaping who you are and since I was denied the childhood afforded most cis girls, I would be having to relive my memories told to myself like watching shadow puppets, experienced through the eye holes of an emotional mask I couldn't remove.
My first time, I saw it through the eyes of Mark. He was winning her over. Her life being shown was the comedic pratfall between the moments in which Mark would appear to first hurt her, second anger her, third confound her, fourth thrill her and fifth win her. He won her, kissing her in the snow fall, a sweet and gentle ending with her half-naked and wrapped within his overcoat. From my approximation at that time of what a man would think, that is how I experienced it. But that isn't the story at all, is it?
The second time I watched this, I was a different person. Or rather, I was the same person with a different paradigm. My world was different, as I was no longer seeing the world from behind a mask I created in an attempt to protect myself. I became emotionally unfiltered, a line drawn direct from the source. I saw the movie correctly, through the eyes of Bridget Jones. I saw her not as a young woman looking for love, that is only a chapter of the story. I saw her as a whole person, with conflicting thoughts, tangled emotional interior, fallible but not unlovable. She was finally a human to me, not a trophy to be won.
And I found I that I loved her, just as she was.
