Latest news with #BridgetJones'
IOL News
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Lena Dunham's 'Too Much': a deep dive into love and trauma
Megan Stalter and Will Sharpe deliver stellar performances in 'Too Much'. Image: X 'Too Much', the new romantic comedy created by Hollywood actress Lena Dunham, has been earning worldwide acclaim for its take on modern relationships. The Netflix series delves deep into the universal experience of not feeling safe in relationships. As the title suggests, it emotionally relates to the legions across the globe from different walks of life who have ever felt, well, 'too much.' The series also unpacks the struggle of making relationships work as both parties have to commit to creating a safe space for each other, while juggling other challenges like careers, family and friends - all while carrying decades worth of personal trauma. Megan Stalter and Will Sharpe in 'Too Much'. Image: X With its sharp humour and an impressive casting of A-listers to breakthrough talents, the rom-com has been sparking debates worldwide as it continues to rank amongst the most-watched shows on the streaming giant, including in South Africa, where it has remained in the Top 10 since its premiere on Friday, June 11. 'Too Much' is the brainchild of the 'Girls' writer and star, with whom she worked on it with her husband, Luis Felber. The actress has explained in an interview that the series draws inspiration from her own life as, like the show's protagonist, she moved from New York to London in 2021, where she ended up meeting her husband, who, like the main character's love interest, is also a British musician. Despite this, Dunham has insisted that 'Too Much' is not meant to directly mirror her life, opening the possibilities for a creative exploration. Meanwhile, Working Title Films, the production company behind the 'Bridget Jones' movie franchise, also produced the show. It centres around Jessica, who is portrayed excellently by 'Hacks' breakout star Megan Stalter. Following a devastating break-up, the chaotic New Yorker in her mid-thirties decided to move to London. It is here where she meets a struggling bar singer Felix, played by 'The White Lotus' actor, Will Sharpe. On her first day in the city, she meets Felix at a pub and their connection is immediate and intense. Megan Stalter and Will Sharpe deliver stellar performances in 'Too Much'. Image: X While Jessica struggles to be away from her family in America as she adjusts to life in the UK, one thing that starts to go well in her life is her relationship with Felix, which continues to strengthen. They spend hours walking through London and talking on their first date, and the couple move in together after just a few months. But as their quirky and heartwarming love story plays out, Jessica and Felix are forced to contend with their individual traumas. Jessica comes from a complicated female-dominated family, including her sister (Dunham), her mother (Rita Wilson), and her grandmother (Rhea Perlman). She is also still processing the pain for her ex-boyfriend, Zev (Michael Zegen), leaving her for a social media influencer, Wendy Jones (Emily Ratajkowski). Meanwhile, Felix is also still traumatised by past relationships and is also battling with his strained family relationships. In his mid-thirties, he lacks ambition and is a recovering addict. And despite their connection, Jessica and Felix must also overcome dating red flags in order to keep their love alive. What truly sets 'Too Much' apart in the rom-com world, with its abundance of offerings, is the stellar performances. The chemistry between Jessica and Felix is electric, despite the cringy awkwardness, which I found to be genuine and authentic. Stalter and Sharpe must be commended for their stellar performances. The manner in which they bring this powerful and modern love story to life resonates with many, and they are brilliant in displaying a range of emotions, from euphoria to heartbreak. The supporting cast, including Dunham in the background as Nora, Jessica's older sister, as well as Ratajkowski, Wilson and Perlman, also delivered heartwarming performances. The storyline is also incredibly powerful as 'Too Much's' themes of grief, heartbreak, personal growth and love are ones that many streamers will be able to relate to. The show's take on personal insecurities and the desire for romantic relationships to be a safe haven has also been intriguing viewers. The intelligent infusion of humour in 'Too Much' also solidifies its success as it acts as satire and opens the door for deeper reflection while also adding balance to this nuanced and emotional story. Some other elements which I enjoyed on the show are Rita Ora's surprise appearance as well as Fergie's 'London Bridge' aptly being used as the soundtrack for this honest and hilarious love story. * I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
Los Angeles Times
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
2025 Emmy predictions: Best TV movie
The panel's lack of enthusiasm for this category expresses itself in a drastic falloff after the first three contenders, as different from each other as TV movies can be. 'Rebel Ridge,' the intense actioner with a should-be star-making performance by Aaron Pierre, is at No. 1. Tied for second are the fourth 'Bridget Jones' movie, rom-com 'Mad About the Boy,' and 'Mountainhead,' which Lorraine Ali calls a 'billionaire satire.' 'We all gripe about this category every year,' acknowledges Tracy Brown, 'but I think the toughest thing … is the range of projects it encompasses, from the more blockbuster-skewing 'Rebel Ridge' to the more firmly indie 'Am I OK?'. And we all need to be OK with that.' Kristen Baldwin sums up the frustration on the part of some panelists: 'Suggestion: Change the name of this category to Nontheatrical Movies. The concept of a 'TV Movie,' as we once knew it, is dead.' Still, Matt Roush sees something to celebrate at the summit, saying 'Mountainhead' 'feels like a front-runner on pedigree alone,' citing its writing and direction by 'Succession's' Jesse Armstrong, and its starry cast. 'This darkest of farces is also frighteningly timely.' 1. 'Rebel Ridge'2. (tie) 'Mountainhead'2. (tie) 'Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy'4. 'Out of My Mind'5. 'The Gorge'6. 'G20'7. 'Am I OK?'
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Selena Gomez, Martin Short, Steve Martin and the ‘Only Murders in the Building' cast share their personal highlights from Season 4
Even in the fourth season of Only Murders in the Building, as Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez's characters visit Hollywood, there was at least one revelation to be found for cocreator Martin. 'It was not until our actual fourth season that I realized Marty did comedy,' Martin deadpanned during an FYC panel for the Hulu series. 'I mean, I did all these seasons with him and I'm thinking 'What a brilliant dramatic actor!' And that was only based on because there were no laughs.' More from GoldDerby 'Squid Game' cast and creative team reveal why Mingle was the standout Season 2 set piece and hopes for Season 3 'Bridget Jones' star Renée Zellweger's emotional admission: 'I didn't want Mark Darcy to go away' 'It's in my contract that I have great clothes, funny lines, and a lover': Christine Baranski on her surging career in her 70s 'Just like now, you mean,' Short quipped without missing a beat. The roasting repartee between the old friends was just one aspect of a rollicking conversation at the Directors Guild of America in Hollywood in which Martin, Gomez, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, and Michael Cyril Creighton joined via Zoom — they're currently at work filming the fifth season in New York City — while guest stars Jane Lynch, Molly Shannon, and Kumail Nanjiani joined cocreator and showrunner John Hoffman live. The panelists quickly zeroed in on some of their personal highlights of the season, which landed on building the show's big emotional moments as the Charles, Oliver, Mabel and their cohorts grow closer and more entwined, building out scene-stealing turns into bona fide costars, the effects of bringing Only Murders to Hollywood. Disney/Eric McCandless Gomez: 'I've spent five years with these iconic people and it's been wonderful being able to become really comfortable and in a groove with what we've created in our bond. So when we do get these emotional scenes I tend to prefer those, because I do have a soft spot for Steve and Marty. … I think there's just magic with them and I feel really grateful that I'm a part of that in any way, and genuinely it was really fun to explore that.' Martin: 'Characters like Howard and Det. Williams, they come in as it may be for two shows or something, and then later you realize 'You know who we need here? We need Howard back. We need Det. Williams back.' And they sort of create an intrinsic involvement in the show, just through their portrayals of their characters.' Creighton: 'I never know what's going to happen in a season. I always like to find out as I get the episodes. So I'm constantly surprised by how John and the writers flesh out how he could so easily just be a joke. But I feel very deeply for him. I think he's at his core really lonely and this trio has brought him out of his shell in such an amazing way. Howard started out as a really isolated character who never left his apartment and was constantly crying. Now he's doing anything he can to support the trio. He is desperate for their approval. He is deeply trying to be the fourth wheel on a tricycle, and it's been really exciting to see him figure out what he's good at, figure out what he's bad at and sort of use all his skills to try to help this amazing trio that he loves so much — even if their relationship is a little adversarial." Randolph: '[Det. Williams] could have easily become very stereotypical, and I love all of the nuances that we're able to create with her. … It's almost like siblings, right? Where it is at the core of it, she's absolutely madly in love with every single one of them, and she also can see their strengths and weaknesses. And so I think this far along and the world of the show, she would do anything for them. She would kill for them. Well, let me not start propaganda!' Hoffman: 'Coming to L.A. felt exactly right — and anachronistic, and that was exactly what felt right about the comedy potential for that, and also for these young amateur podcasters to be enticed and invited to Hollywood, which is very much of the moment, I think, so it felt natural. And I was really curious about these three dyed-in-the-wool New Yorkers in Los Angeles … watching them sort of make their way through the embrace of someone like Molly Shannon as a studio head felt just too dreamy to avoid. ... It was just story-wise, ready to give it a little bit of a jolt and then bring them back to New York.' Martin: 'Our first scene that we shot in L.A. was on the Paramount lot, right there. It was the inner gate and it was a spot I'd walked over 50 years going back and forth on the Paramount lot, getting rejected.' Nanjiani: 'I genuinely begged to be on the show. I had a Zoom with John and I was like, 'Please, I need to be on this show! I love this show, I'm a fan of everyone on this show!' And then when I got there, you kind of have to pretend to be just normal and act like you've been there. Like, 'Steve — am I saying that right? Steve?' 'Marty — Nice to meet you.' I was like, just be cool. And then on day two I was like, 'So when you guys were making Three Amigos…' And they totally indulged me and told me everything and at was really, really sweet.' Lynch: '[It was] a delight to watch Steve, and every time we did a scene together I would watch him in rehearsal and I would mimic what he did when he would. He had the idea of the first thing we did together, which was with our glasses, and then we took off from there. It was fun to wear the same clothes he wears. It was fun to steal his girlfriend. It was fun to be so much more charming and more sociable than he is. It's fun to be a much more happy person than he is. And yet the love was real — there's such love for him.' Nanjiani: 'At one point Steve came up to me because one of a line, I had referenced a movie of his and he's like, 'Hey, Kumail, I want to tell you: I was in this movie called Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid…' And I was like, 'Steve, I know who you are!' I genuinely think Steve does not know that he's an icon. I don't think he knows. Marty knows. Marty will refer to himself as such. And I do not disagree because he is right.' Patrick Harbron/Hulu Randolph: 'It's really, really cool to see major names in their own right, you almost see the little actor in them when they come on this show, because that true love of why they do what they do comes out. I've seen it in every single major new star that we get every season. I thought I knew them. … If people could see the behind the scenes of this show and see people's heart and who they are as actors, you see that little thing in them that grew big to make them who they are. And that's to me just the coolest thing to watch.' Nanjiani: 'What I loved about working with them was that the joy of the job is so evident. They obviously make so much great stuff, but in every single scene when they're there, they want to be the best that they can be in that scene. And I think as someone who's grown up — I'm getting emotional — watching them since I can remember. genuinely they've never been better than they are right now.' Gomez: 'It's actually so incredible. And you see why these people are so incredible through their work ethics, through the fun they have, the passion. They're on time, they pour their all into it. I never in a million years thought I'd seen Meryl Streep punch [Melissa McCarthy].' Shannon: 'When I was a struggling actress in Hollywood I worked for agencies, and so I felt like I was like a spy because I was studying for producers and how they work behind the scenes. … So mostly the greatest was trying to make Selena laugh because she's the best. There's nothing better than me making Selena laugh and she is the greatest comedy partner — so my character was, she's just like, 'F--k it! Actors! And your little slippers, and your special food…'' She gets to go off on them.' Short: 'Molly comes in and she's changing the words in every take. And you just see Selena turn upstage, and she's shaking.' Gomez: 'We actually had to use edits of me laughing anyway because there was no other option! You did it different every time — and I hate to say it, but it was really spot on!' Shannon: 'That particular scene — Meryl was in it too, and I was just so nervous, actually, in all honesty! I was like, 'I have to bring my A-game because I'm with these superstars.' So I was nervous. And so that scene did go very well … and I have to say, when I got home to my hotel that night, a fancy hotel that the show put me up in, and I had a margarita and I did little dance because I was so excited! That's the truth!' Best of GoldDerby 'I cried a lot': Rob Delaney on the heart and humor in FX's 'Dying for Sex' — and Neighbor Guy's kick in the 'zone' TV directors roundtable: 'American Primeval,' 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,' 'Paradise' 'Paradise' directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra on the 'chaos' of crafting 'the world coming to an end' Click here to read the full article.
Chicago Tribune
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
‘Jane Austen Wrecked My Life' review: Writing and living her own private rom-com
A pleasant, low-friction bit of romantic fiction, 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life' is the first feature from writer-director Laura Piani. In her mid-20s, Piani worked in Paris in the venerable English-language bookshop Shakespeare and Company, a primary location in this debut project. When Piani took a job there, she'd already had her head filled as a teenager by the smart women and foolish choices, happily avoided, created by the author and life-wrecker of this film's title. The story's nice and simple. It takes its aspiring-novelist protagonist outside her comfort zone, from Paris to an Austen writing residency in England. Piani's film is, in itself, a comfort zone for viewers, the latest of many cinematic mash notes to Jane Austen, from 'Clueless' to four 'Bridget Jones' movies. Pulling from the filmmaker's life, the character of Agathe — played with untheatrical gravity and hints of a blithe spirit in the making by Camille Rutherford — spends her days among the stacks at Shakespeare and Company, sorting, helping customers, dishing with her good friend and fellow employee Felix (Pablo Pauly). He's bachelor No. 1, a bit of a cad but reasonably charming about it. His intentions may be up in the air regarding Agathe, but he looks out for her. He sneaks a look at the chapters she's written and, impressed, submits them behind her back to the Austen residency for consideration. It works, and reluctantly Agatha accepts the two weeks in the English countryside with other invitees toiling on their own projects. Earlier, in an anxious state over the prospect of finishing her novel, Agathe is pessimistic. Felix mansplains that she suffers from imposter syndrome. Her reply: 'No, I don't, I'm a imposter.' The scenario's bachelor No. 2 arrives in the brooding personage of Oliver (Charlie Anson), the great-great-great-great-nephew of Austen herself. He's no fan, though ('overrated'), which gives Agathe, the visitor he picks up at the ferry landing, something to argue about straight off. From there, Piani's film does its self-assigned work in solid if programmatic fashion, establishing a back bench of supporting characters at the residency, as well as at home in Paris where Agathe, who hasn't dated in a couple of years, lives with her sister and nephew. She's a tough nut, emotionally guarded in the wake of the sisters' parents' death in a car crash. These circumstances are layered enough to make 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life' a little more than rom-com piffle, though there's little romantic tension in Piani's triangle since Oliver is the auxiliary Mr. Darcy here, and therefore a pre-ordained match made in literary heaven. Shot entirely in France, the movie renders its ideas of romantic melancholy and Agathe's default romantic defeatism in ways that reassure the audience every second. Agathe is either inside her beautiful bookshop, her beautiful, sunny Parisian domicile or roaming a beautiful house and grounds for knocking out a novel while your heart figures things out. Piani did the right thing in casting Rutherford, whose physical embodiment of Agathe suggests a tall, gangly, striking woman trying not to be seen. The actress leans into the character's unsettled, often sullen side, though not at the expense of the comic tropes (at one point, nude, she walks through her bathroom door, which turns out to be Oliver's room). Rutherford provides the internal friction throughout, while the generally frictionless mechanics of the movie itself hum along, with soothing sights and sounds. These include the fine actress Liz Crowther, as the Austen residency's hostess, quoting Wordsworth's notion of the best part of life: the 'little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.' 'Jane Austen Wrecked My Life' — 3 stars (out of 4) MPA rating: R (for language, some sexual content, and nudity) Running time: 1:34 How to watch: Premieres in select theaters May 23
Daily Mirror
11-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Daily Mirror
'I'm an interiors expert - clutter is back in and here's why I'm obsessed'
Earthy tones and minimalism have been on trend for years, but an interiors expert has revealed why a cluttered-looking home is coming into fashion and why she's obsessed with the concept Move aside minimalist homes, maximalist decor is the way to go embrace clutter Inspired by the 'cluttercore' of Bridget Jones' Victorian townhouse in Mad About The Boy? Then read on to find out how to make the most of the 'intentional clutter' look in your own home, in five simple, budget-friendly steps. Curate your clutter The concept of 'intentional clutter' is gaining popularity with people keen to display more of their own personalities – and 'stuff' – in their homes, while still keeping them stylish. In fact, online searches in the UK for maximalist decor have skyrocketed by 120% over the past year. Charlotte Ford, Marketing Director at Ruggable, explains, 'Intentional clutter is about curating, not hoarding. 'Avoid keeping items just for aesthetics and instead, showcase books you love, meaningful trinkets and souvenirs that spark joy.' Keep colou Charlotte says, 'If your trinkets, books and art are mismatched, try to keep the other colours in your space as harmonious as possible. Choose a colour palette that complements the mood and vibe you want to create.' Earthy tones like terracotta or sage green are a good option, alongside mustard and brown tones. They create a relaxing backdrop while allowing your accessories to shine through. Harness plant power Studies show plants, such as the ever-popular palm, can help boost productivity and mood, which is great if you work from home. 'Having pockets of nature in your home can bring about relaxation and add an organic energy,' Charlotte continues. 'To maximise that 'curated clutter' feel, opt for trailing ivy and towering monstera plants that will hang and wind around furniture. 'Hanging plants are also a good option because they draw the eye upward, helping to shift focus away from clutter on the floor. This makes the room feel less chaotic and more organised, even in a busy space.' Turn treasures into art Art can really bring a home to life, so why not showcase postcards, ornaments and paintings like your very own mini art exhibition? Experiment with colours and textures, like placing a postcard in an antique frame with a colourful backdrop, arranging your favourite books on a coffee table or dotting knick-knacks around shelves for an eclectic yet personal feel. Using items we already own is a more sustainable option than buying new things, and they're a talking point. Incorporate vintage pieces Vintage, second-hand pieces are an integral part of the intentional clutter trend. Charlotte adds, 'These pieces could've been passed down through generations or be something you have picked up and connected with. This is important because not everything in your home will match. 'Interiors are moving towards personalised spaces, with less focus on plain walls and generic artwork. Many are now gravitating towards homes that embrace lived-in mess and personal memorabilia.' Vintage rugs, especially colourful ones, are a great place to start as they are the focal point of a room. Then look for trinkets that clash with the colours that you can see.
