The most unrealistic part of “Bridget Jones’s Baby” (out Friday) isn’t Bridget’s (Renée Zellweger) will-they-or-won’t-they romances with Colin Firth’s adorably uptight lawyer character, Mark Darcy, or her billionaire suitor, played by Patrick Dempsey — it’s that Bridget even gets pregnant at all.
Spoilers aside, the new “Bridget Jones” flick really does give fans what they want: lots of Bridget, lots of Mark Darcy. Plus plenty of high jinks, professional mishaps, weddings, christenings and self-deprecating humor. And something even Bridget didn’t know she wanted: a baby.
Bridget, at 43, becomes pregnant accidentally after a one-night stand at a music festival with Dempsey’s character, Jack Qwant (the aforementioned billionaire). But a week later, she also sleeps with Mark. Much of the humor of the film comes from Bridget trying to hedge her bets, unsure of the father’s identity.
But all giggles aside, a more realistic scenario would have involved Bridget actively making the choice to get pregnant, then spending week after week at a fertility center, undergoing round after round of IVF, hoping for a positive result.
According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, after age 40 a woman’s chance of conceiving drops to 5 percent each month, meaning that only 5 in 100 women will be successful each month. This is a steep drop from 20 percent, the monthly chance that a healthy 30-year-old woman has. Even with IVF, women over 40 can still only hope for a 20 percent success rate.
Next time, the filmmakers should stick to a more plausible plot. Anything involving breast pumps at work or mommy groups will do nicely.