What Bridget sees: a solitary figure by the window, his back to the room, his head turned in handsome profile, his whole posture indicating haughty disengagement. This is MARK DARCY. Bridget’s reaction shows some interest—he’s a rather romantic looking figure.
 

MOTHER swoops in, thrusting a tray at Bridget, and sweeping her off.
 

Mark Darcy talks in low, urgent tones to his rather grand looking, military-type well-born parents...
 

Mark turns slowly, revealing a brightly coloured set of reindeer on the front of his sweater.
 

The Darcy Parents politely back off, leaving their son, Mark, stranded. Mark takes his time looking at Bridget...

He says that in a very formal, rather forbidding sort of way, very Mr Darcyish, in fact.
 

An awkward silence. Una, sizing up the situation from afar, moves in.
 

Una shoots Mother a meaningful look, ‘Leave them alone’. Mother looks at Bridget and Mark, then twigs.
 

Mark clenches his jaw muscles in embarrassment at Mother’s vulgarity, as he and Bridget are left alone. Long pause, conscious of parental stares.
 

Bridget stares at him.

Is there a tiny glint of amusement in Mark’s eye?
 

She does a little laugh. Inscrutable reaction from Mark.
 

Looking at her drink and fag.
 

Mark walks off. Bridget notices all eyes staring at her, then hurriedly averted. She walks to the Turkey Curry Buffet...
 

[Dad shows up to talk about mother’s behavior, dissatisfaction with life, etc. Meanwhile Tom calls to say that he’s left his mobile phone in Bridget’s apartment and she thinks she’s thrown it away with the newspapers. Bridget, who is not dressed, grabs a coat and exits.]

Bridget stands on a low wall by three communal dustbins. Her overcoat covers her bath towel and not much else. She has 2 curlers in the back of her hair. Suddenly, out of the darkness, Mark Darcy appears, dressed in jogging clothes...
 

Pause. There’s the ring of a phone. Mark is startled, as Bridget reaches into one of the dustbins, struggles to locate the phone. Mark reaches into the dustbin nearest him, retrieves the phone, answers it...
 

She heads back into her house, he continues on his way. She turns and looks back at him—he seems to be laughing.

Bridget enters [her flat] breathless, races into the bathroom.
 

Bridget’s face.
 

Bridget exits from the toilets. She sees Daniel Cleaver, across the room, talking to Melvyn Bragg and other celebrities. Cleaver’s eyes meet Bridget. He smiles. Bridget turns coolly the other way, only to find herself face to face with Mr Fitzherbert, surrounded by several guests.
 

Mr Fitzherbert turns to reveal the guest beside him is none other than Ben Okri.
 

A drinks tray passes, and Bridget seizes the opportunity to spin 180 degrees, only to find herself face to face with Mark Darcy, who, from the look on his face, obviously just overheard Bridget’s clanger. She’s genuinely surprised to see him there in designer suit, looking handsome.

Mark Darcy stands rigid, clearly hating every minute.
 

At that moment, the crowds part and Perpetua arrives, still stuffing her face with canapes...
 

Bridget finally has an opportunity to put Jude’s book, ‘Making Parties Work for You’, into practice...
 

WHAT BRIDGET REALLY SAYS:

Bridget looks at him in a new light. She thought he was a nerd. She didn’t know he was famous.

At this point, Natasha Glenville arrives. She is sleek and beautiful and not kind. Mark’s very intelligent fellow lawyer.
 

Perpetua and Natasha, who has just dismissed Bridget as a zero immediately fall into conversation—two posh peas in a pod.

Bridget grabs a drink from a passing tray, then looks up at Mark, who has, after all, just made a joke—but Mark Darcy, meanwhile, suddenly falls silent when he sees:

Daniel Cleaver checking out the room. He sees Mark, starring at him. Disconcerted, he quickly looks away.

Bridget has seen this. She’s slightly at a loss now.
 

Bridget turns to walk in Daniel’s direction, only to find he has disappeared, and there’s no-one to talk to. Behind her, Mark watches, perhaps regretting his remark.
 

[While watching snooker on television, Daniel finds he is out of cigarettes and Bridget will not go fetch any for him. So he goes downstairs.]

Daniel comes out, opening the pack of cigarettes, lighting up, inhaling deep...A few wedding guests walk by him. He flicks open his mobile phone.

Mark Darcy is coming up the steps.
 

Silence. These two really don’t like each other. Mark walks away.
 

[When Bridget arrives Jeremy is not yet home. Previous scenes were deleted where Bridget catches Jeremy out with another woman.]

At which moment Jeremy comes in.
 

Bridget catches his eye.
 

WHAT BRIDGET ACTUALLY SAYS:
 

People laugh—but there’s a gap which Mark Darcy strives to fill.
 

She seems to glance a little towards Mark during this.
 

Mark Darcy continues...
 

This brings the conversation to a halt.
 

Mark, Sharon, Jude and Tom are seated around the table. Everybody stares at the soup, which is blue—then look at Bridget, who dares them to say a word.
 

They are policing his attentions to Bridget. Like parents.
 

Tiny pause—is he going to be sensitive about it?
 

Cut to 40 minutes later—they’re all eating the chewy orange pudding.
 

Close on Bridget. She is exchanging looks with Mark—he looks back at her—suddenly there is a chance of happiness... And then suddenly—at exactly that moment...

The ring of the bell.
 

Then Mark lands Daniel a very violent punch. There is a sickening thud as fist hits face.

Bridget reacts. As Daniel lies, unconscious, Bridget runs across to him. She looks up at Mark, foxed by his alarmingly violent behavior.
 

Mark stares down at the scene.
 

Close on Bridget watching as Mark walks.
 

[Inside the Jones home, Dad and Bridget are watching the Home Shopping Channel.
 

They toast—cut round Sharon/Jude/Tom, all of them singletons with their families.

JUDE'S PARENTS' HOUSE
 

They turn to toast Jude. She bursts dramatically into tears.
 

SHARON'S PARENTS' HOUSE
 

TOM'S PARENTS' HOUSE
 

A manor house on the edge of town. Not big enough to be a ‘Hall’ nor naff enough to be called ‘The Willows’. But assured. Comfortable, with a large gate. The kind of place you’d find a retired Major reading his ‘Wisden’, but not the Prince of Wales, which is how everyone is behaving...

Bridget’s Mum and Dad enter holding hands, lighting the room, quite indecently satisfied. Mum sees Una and Geoffrey. Big grin.
 

Bridget freezes. Mark approaches. He is beautifully dressed apart from a hideous Pooh Bear bow-tie. His eyes meet Bridget’s.
 

Awkward pause—and then Natasha approaches.
 

They move into a slightly odd private place—under the stairs or something—amongst coats. She talks very fast.
 

Long pause. Neither of them know what to say. Both just about to speak when...Mark’s father hits a glass with a spoon. It’s a toast.
 

He walks away.

[Mark’s Father’s speech]

A real gasp from everyone—that turns into applause, and a bit of shouting. Cut to very smug Natasha—and very abashed Mark.
 

Before anyone can take up the toast, a lone voice cuts through.
 

FANTASY: WHAT BRIDGET WANTS TO SAY:

Mark, Natasha, the Darcys, Bridget’s Mum and Dad, the Alconburys go into their usual fantasy slo-mo.
 

We then cut back to Bridget—she hasn’t said any of this.
 

Through the cries of “Mark and Natasha”/”Natasha and Mark”, we see Bridget, thinking about what she has just imagined—what she’d like to say—she screws up her will for the single most important time in her life, and, this time for real, starts again:
 

This time of course everyone really reacts, in real time—everyone turns to stare: Mark, Natasha, the Darcys, Bridget’s Mum and Dad, the Alconburys.
 

Deathly silence. Bridget turns and makes for the door—and just trips on the carpet as she goes.
 

Cut back to Mark and Father—and Natasha—totally perplexed.
 

Mark and Natasha just emerging having picked up and done customs etc. She calmly slips her arm through his as they head through. Waiting for them holding a sign saying Mark & Natasha is a very smartly dressed young man—clearly a keen junior lawyer from the firm.
 

[short cut to Bridget]
 

He stops dead.
 

Looks up to check TV above saying ‘Departures.’
 

He kisses Natasha quickly on the cheek, then turns and simply sprints down the long glass corridor away from them.
 

The friends are now all packed tight in the little car. Bridget stands on the steps. With cold little fingers, she searches in her bag for the keys, can’t find them. She pours the contents of her bag onto the pavement.
 

Tears begin to plop down her cheeks.

Suddenly, the camera changes focus and there, on the opposite side of the street—like a stalker, or a ghost—is Mark Darcy, standing beside his car, watching her. Still dressed in exactly the clothes he wore at the airport.
 

Sharon nudges him in the car—and points—all three of them turn—and see Mark—he doesn’t see them seeing him—he continues to look just at Bridget. They stare at him open-mouthed. Bridget finds the keys.
 

She locks the door and turns. And there Mark is. They look at each other. Then he walks slowly across the street.
 

He moves to kiss her...

He moves to kiss her again; but just doesn’t make it, because there is a tremendous tooting and hooting from the now very fogged up car down the street. And lots of shouting—‘Hooray’, ‘Hooray’, ‘That’s my girl’.
 

He moves to kiss her again.
 

[Inside Bridget’s flat]

Mark and Bridget are entering from the snow.
 

She goes out of the room. Mark looks over all the copies of Hello and Red and Cosmopolitan. Then his eyes light upon her diary. She’d been warned. He reaches to pick it up.

Bridget is changing from big pants to little knickers.
 

She lifts up her skirt to remove the big pants she was wearing.

Meanwhile Mark reads a bit of the diary...we see what he reads—with increasing horror as he flicks the pages...
 

He closes the diary quietly, and walks out the door.

Bridget is half way through changing. Perhaps now has on her top half only. She hears the heavy slam of the door. She rushes out, and sure enough...No one’s there. She looks out the window and sees Mark walking away. It is still snowing. She opens the window and shouts out.
 

He doesn’t hear—or won’t hear—as he strides down the street. She looks at the diary. Reads the words ‘utterly hateful boring snob’.
 

And has to decide what to do.
 

She charges down the stairs. Bridget in bare feet and legs sprints out into the snow past Mr Ramdas and a couple of Greek waiters.
 

She reaches the main street—turns a corner.

[High Street]

It is snowing. Bridget turns on to the main high street. She can’t see Mark. Then up ahead she sees Mark turn the corner. She runs after him.

Bridget staring wildly around her. Suddenly Mark emerges from the shop, which has a constant flow of very respectable middle-aged ladies. He looks at the under-dressed shivering Bridget in the snow.
 

Pause.
 

Pause.
 

He holds up a little leather book.
 

Total joy—she jumps up on him—arms right around his neck, feet in the air—and hugs him.
 

And then they kiss. It lasts a genuine amount of time. They split apart—Bridget is a little breathless—and confused.

Both smile—both know the future is full of strange delights.

Parent’s House. Garden 1960s

Home Movie Footage shows Bridget Jones, 4 years old, tormenting Mark Darcy, 8n years old. The setting is Bridget’s parents garden—swing, slide, paddling pool—and Bridget is clearly crazy about Mark: hugging him, trying to kiss him, mugging at the camera. Mark seems mortified, constantly trying to get away. In the background their parents, in outrageous 60’s clothes.

At the paddling pool, Bridget takes off her clothes and walks back to Mark. He looks uncomfortable—but then smiles and kisses her. Baby Bridget radiantly happy—Mark not unhappy. Freeze.

After Daniel tells Bridget that he is engaged to Lara...
 

She hangs up—the phone rings again.
 

She hangs up. Phone goes again. Bridget answers.
 

The phone goes again. She picks it up and talks straight away.