If I had a daughter, I would take her to a Bridget Jones movie and say: 'Don’t be like Bridget'

The central message of the four movies is, broadly speaking, that it’s enough for Bridget to flap around in her pyjamas with tousled hair, hoping to be rescued by a younger man, an older man, or any man

Renée Zellweger and Leo Woodall in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.

I saw the new Bridget Jones film on Saturday with low expectations, but it left me in a strangely wistful mood. Watching craggy-faced characters you first met in the nineties and realising you are the same age provoked nostalgia. In one scene, where they dance to Fat Boy Slim, it’s like being put in a time machine. And in the closing sequence watching the characters at a party, happy despite their challenges, sickness, death, and divorce, you can’t help but reflect that you, too, have survived the shit the years have doled out.

Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones's Diary, which launched the entire franchise, had intimate, Adrian Mole-style writing that drew you in. It was a smashing commercial success, selling over 15 million copies, so hats off to the smart, savvy Ms Fielding.