Since Helen Fielding created hapless, middle-class Bridget in the mid-90s, she's divided opinion. As the fourth film is released, women across different generations discuss her impact.

Fretful hedonist and loyal owner of ungainly knickers, Bridget Jones first appeared in a Nineties newspaper column. Four best-selling books and three record-breaking films later, Helen Fielding's creation can now be seen in a fourth big-screen adventure and, as the figurehead of a seemingly unstoppable British franchise, is routinely compared to James Bond.

Of course, hapless, middle-class Bridget doesn't race around saving the world from evildoers. She's more likely to be found in a London bar, swigging white wine with her garrulous mates. Either that, or lusting after men, traditionally Hugh Grant's Daniel Cleaver or Colin Firth's Mark Darcy, though she hasn't been entirely indifferent to the rest of the globe; in a bid to seem sophisticated and conscience-stricken she once practiced saying the phrase, "Isn't it terrible about Chechnya?" (in original 2001 film Bridget Jones's Diary) and another time, out of pure bad luck, wound up in a Thai jail (in 2004's sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason). As for kids, they weren't really on her to-do list until she accidentally got pregnant in her forties (in 2016's Bridget Jones's Baby) and spent the next few months wondering if Mark was the dad.

Some view the return of Bridget as dire news for feminism: Bridget-bashers despair of the character's ditzy fixation on either invasively cheeky or preposterously chivalrous men, not to mention her obsessive calorie-counting. Last year, following the announcement of the latest film, Glamour magazine ran an article saying, "Bridget Jones was toxic – we don't need her back", and dubbing her "a dreadful and misogynistic role model". However, others have said that the new film – in which Bridget gets a 29-year-old boyfriend – is an empowering treat for women. In The Guardian, Hollie Richardson wrote: "It is joyous to see a fifty-something mother enjoying a whirlwind of romance and sex."

You can't discuss Bridget Jones without at least mentioning Jane Austen, whose romantic comedies Fielding both cannibalises and mocks. Suffice to say, if you need your widows to be elegant and focused entirely on their children, à la Mrs Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, then Mad About the Boy is not for you.

Now in her early fifties, Bridget (Renée Zellweger; never better) is still grieving for her beloved Mark (killed by a landmine in Sudan, though still present as a gorgeous ghost) and bringing up the couple's two children, with the odd bit of help from her wicked ex, Daniel (Grant; saucy, but subtle). Encouraged by her friends to get out more, our heroine goes back to working as a TV producer, joins Tinder, and soon finds herself having lots of excellent sex with a young parks supervisor, Roxster (One Day's Leo Woodall; disarming), as well as flirting with a sensitive science teacher, Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor; magnetically wry). When things get complicated, Bridget seeks solace in a dodgy serum that's designed to make her lips appear youthfully plump, which leads to some truly glorious screwball comedy and a stand-out intervention from a bemused gynaecologist, Dr Rawlings (Emma Thompson; crushing it).

For film critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, Mad About the Boy – as well as marking a rousing return to form for Working Title, the production company known for quintessentially British romantic comedies like Four Weddings and a Funeral – does its central character proud. "Bridget has always been the inner voice of a generation, saying what we all think, but can't admit, [with our anxieties] that we're not good-looking enough, that we'll never win a Nobel Peace Prize," she says. "I'm not sure if she's a feminist icon. She aspires to be one, though, and Mad About the Boy offers this all-round portrait of what it means to be a woman. I loved the first film, but the character has really evolved."

What did Ivan-Zadeh particularly relish about the new film? "That Zellweger/Bridget is allowed to look wrinkly. Am I allowed to say that? Let's just say other actresses, in the age........

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