SOURCE: “Pride and Predictability,” in Chicago Tribune, Vol. 153, No. 67, March 7, 2000.

In the following review of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Alessio calls the novel “fun,” but also finds it predictable and filled with stereotypical caricatures.

Helen Fielding doesn't pay homage to Jane Austen's work; she plunders it. In Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the thirtysomething British heroine not only becomes further involved with a wealthy man named Mark Darcy but also interviews Colin Firth, the actor who played the character of Mr. Darcy in the BBC mini-series of Pride and Prejudice. As Bridget writes in her diary. “You see ironically enough, in a spooky sixth-sense meant-to-be-type way, Mr. Darcy has made me forget obsession with Mark Darcy.”

The interview with Firth is Bridget's first foray into print journalism (she regularly hosts a British TV show), and she ends up asking him comically irrelevant questions about his...