'Bridget Jones's Baby' Review: Renée Zellweger's Third Turn is a Charm

With Bridget Jones’s Baby, her first movie in six years, Renée Zellweger is back in the spotlight. Subscribe now for an inside look at why she took a break from acting, only in PEOPLE!

Fifteen years after she charmed the world with the movie of her best-selling Diary, Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) is back with Bridget Jones’s Baby, and her love life is just as (comically) complicated.

In this third film based on characters created by author Helen Fielding, British singleton Bridget has broken up with Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) and turned her focus on advancing her career – she is now a top news producer – and on surrounding herself with new, likeminded friends. It’s while she’s on a weekend getaway with one of these fun friends (Sarah Solemani) that Bridget meets a new suitor – American tech mogul Jack (Patrick Dempsey), with whom she has a one-night stand.

That encounter is followed by a rendezvous with Darcy, (because of course it is – this is Bridget Jones), and soon thereafter Bridget is dealing with an unplanned pregnancy with one of two handsome candidates for father.

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It is here, in the midst of this complication and the only slightly far-fetched antics fueled by it, where Zellweger’s Bridget shines: Her insecurities are made charming and familiar, the bumbling nature is warm and winning. And she’s in very good company: There’s the always welcome presence of Firth’s Darcy, an affable new love interest in Dempsey and scene-stealing franchise newcomers Solemani and Emma Thompson (who also co-wrote the BJB screenplay) as Bridget’s doctor. (Check out PEOPLE’s cover story with Zellweger here!)

Fans of Ms. Jones will take comfort in the fact that in this third installment the old(er) gal remains adorably flustered yet relatable. Her heart is still gold and her sense of humor fully intact, reminding us why we fell in love with her in the first place.

Bridget Jones’s Baby opens in theaters September 16.