Renée Zellwegger is irresistible as Bridget Jones, in this delectable romantic comedy with some sly references to that uber-romantic comedy, Pride and Prejudice. From the opening credits, when we see her singing along with the radio to “All By Myself” in her flannel pajamas, we know that she is destined to find someone who loves her as much as we do already, and that we will have a lot of fun on the way there.

Bridget wants to lose weight, stop smoking and drinking, and stop worrying about getting a boyfriend -– so that she can get a boyfriend. But we know that she is just fine the way she is, and suspect that in her heart, she knows that, too. The trick is finding a guy who knows it, and before she can figure that out, she has to get through the gorgeous cad stage. That means an affair with her workaholic, alcoholic, self-centered, needy, but witty and undeniably extremely gorgeous boss, Daniel.

Hugh Grant seems positively relieved not to have to be the stammering, adorable, truehearted “Notting Hill” guy anymore. He plays the part of Daniel, “a disaster with a posh voice and a terrible character,” with such relish that we enjoy seeing Bridget fall for him almost as much as we enjoy seeing her tell him off.

But being taken advantage of by Daniel is not the worst of Bridget’s trials. There is her mother, who leaves her father for an oily home shopping channel pitchman with a fake tan. There is showing up for a “tarts and vicars” party in a Playboy bunny outfit because no one told her that they had decided not to have the guests wear costumes after all. There is the rather stunning shot of Bridget from below as she slides down a fireman’s pole, broadcast throughout the country on television. And there is the stiff and disapproving childhood neighbor, Mark Darcy, now a divorced barrister, who always seems to be there just as Bridget encounters disaster.

Like his namesake in Pride and Prejudice, though, Darcy turns out to have more tenderness and humor than one would think. And so do the filmmakers. Colin Firth, who played Darcy in the television miniseries “Pride and Prejudice,” appears as this Mr. Darcy as well, and his sly and subtle variation on the character is another of the movie’s great pleasures.

Parents should know that this movie is rated R for strong language and for sexual situations and references. There is a very brief shot of a naked couple making love. Characters drink and smoke a lot.

Families who see this movie should talk about how we sort through all of the expectations of our families and our society in deciding who we will be and what chances we will take. What does someone have to know about herself in order to turn down a Daniel? In order to understand what someone like Darcy has to offer?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Four Weddings and a Funeral” (rated R) and everyone should watch Firth and Jennifer Ehle in the miniseries version of “Pride and Prejudice.” The classic MGM version with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson (adapted by Aldous Huxley) is also a treat.

This special effects action comedy is fun for kids and fairly painless for adults. More important, it is a rare film directed at kids from 4th-8th grade, that most neglected of movie audiences. Not surprisingly, it is produced by Nickelodeon, the cable channel dedicated to just that group.

Zak (Jesse Bradford), the son of a loving but preoccupied scientist, accidentally takes a top-secret device, thinking it is a watch. It turns out to be a mechanism for speeding up the metabolic rate of whoever is touching it so that they see the world around them as almost frozen. To the rest of the world, they are moving to fast to be seen. At first, Zak uses it to impress a pretty girl (Paula Garces as Francesca) and together they have fun with some pranks and pay-backs. But then the bad guys come after them, and Zak and Francesca have to save the world.

The plot is a throw-back to the old Disney classics like “The Shaggy Dog” (also with a pretty teenage girl named Francesca) and “The Absent-Minded Professor.” Director Jonathan Frakes (of “Star Trek”) ably handles the sci-fi aspect with special effects that truly are special. We see water droplets suspended in air and a bee floating over a flower. The movie zips along quickly and has a lively pop soundtrack.

Parents should know that there is mild peril, though the guns only shoot ice bullets (to shock the system out of hyper-time) and no one is hurt. Francesca wears some revealing outfits, but she and Zak share only a couple of kisses. The movie features multi-ethnic good and bad guys and Francesca is strong, smart, and brave.

Families who see the movie should talk about the problems of developing technologies that can get into the wrong hands and the problems of balancing commitments to work and family.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy The Rocketeer.

Chris Rock is a stand-up comic. The people behind this movie (the Weitz brothers, of “American Pie” and “Chuck and Buck”) wisely devote 25 percent of the film to Rock’s stand-up routine. Chris Rock is not an actor. He has a likeable comic presence and has made some memorable screen appearances in movies like “Dogma” (as an unrecorded disciple) and “Nurse Betty.” But he is not an actor. He has no capacity to show even the few emotions called for in this movie. During the dramatic and romantic episodes, he always appears to be counting the minutes before he can go back on stage. It is also a real disappointment to see the comic talents of one of today’s most talented actresses, Regina King (of “Jerry Maguire” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back”) neglected

In this third movie version of the play originally called “Heaven Can Wait” (filmed under that name with Warren Beatty and filmed earlier as “Here Comes Mr. Jordan”), Rock plays Lance Barton, a would-be stand up comic who is prematurely delivered to heaven by an angel named Keyes (Eugene Levy) who did not know that he was supposed to survive a bicycle accident. Keyes’ boss, Mr. King (Chazz Palminteri), a cool, rat pack-ish guy in a dinner jacket, brings Lance back to earth to find him a new body to inhabit. Lance agrees to a temporary arrangement, the body of the world’s 15th richest man, Charles Wellington. Wellington is a white man in his sixties. And he has a young bimbo wife and an assistant who are trying to kill him.

Lance agrees to take on Wellington’s body when he sees Sontee (Regina King), a nurse who has come to tell Wellington off for taking over a local hospital and refusing patients who do not have insurance. But then he has to get used to being seen by the world as a rich white guy. When he tries to do his usual stand-up routine, about the differences between blacks and whites, the audience is shocked and offended. Somehow Sontee sees past his appearance,though. As they begin to fall in love, Lance is reluctant to leave Wellington’s body. But he is able to take what he has learned when it is time to move on.

Parents should know that the movie has strong language, including frequent use of the n-word. (The movie points out that everything depends on whether the word is said by a white person or a black person — this is well worth discussing.) There are sexual references and situations, including adultery and a proposed menage a trois (with two women in bed). A couple’s sexual relationship includes insults and fighting. Characters drink and smoke, and make drug references. Characters are killed (some accidentally) and one commits suicide because he has lost his money.

Families who see this movie should talk about what it would be like to inhabit the body of someone of another race (or gender). Tellingly, since he always appears the same to himself, Lance discovers that a new body he is inhabiting is black only when he tries to hail a cab and none will stop for him. How does humor change, based on who is telling the joke? What jokes do you tell about your own group that might offend you coming from someone else? Are there jokes you might tell among your own group that you would not say in a mixed group? Some families might want to talk about the conflicts between making a profit and helping the community raised by Sontee’s protests.

Families who enjoy this movie should see the two original versions with Robert Montgomery (father of “Betwitched’s” Elizabeth Montgomery) and Warren Beatty.

Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman) falls in love with Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer), a musician, and once they are married, he persuades her to move into the house she lived in as a child, which has been closed since her aunt was murdered there.

At first very happy, Paula soon becomes confused and insecure. While Gregory appears to be solicitous and caring, in reality he is cutting her off from all contact with anyone but himself, and making her doubt herself and her sanity. He convinces her that she is always losing things, that she sees things that are not there, that she is unstable and untrustworthy. Every night he leaves to play the piano in an apartment he has rented, and while he is gone the gaslights flicker and she hears mysterious noises from the attic. Gregory persuades her that these are just her delusions.

Just as Paula’s fragile hold on reality is about to break, she is visited by Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotten) of Scotland Yard, with information about Gregory. But can she trust him? Or is he just another illusion?

This classic of suspense is a good way to begin a conversation about vulnerability and manipulation. Gregory is almost able to drive Paula mad by making her think she is mad already. By cutting her off from any outside reality, by cooly denying what she sees and hears for herself, by telling her over and over again that she is helpless and incompetent, she begins to turn into the person he tells her that she is.

Families who see the movie should talk about these questions: “Gaslighting” someone is now an accepted psychiatric term, based on this movie, and its predecessor, the play “Angel Street.” What do you think it means? How does Gregory get Paula to doubt herself? How does the director help the viewer get some sense of Paula’s feelings of disorientation and doubt? Can someone make another person doubt him or herself as Gregory did? Can someone affect other people positively along the same lines, helping them to believe in themselves? How?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Dial M for Murder” and “Suspicion.”

I’d like to add to the list of things I never want to see in another movie, right after lip-synching to Motown songs shown as a bonding experience and sign of inner hipness, anyone ever saying to anyone, “I got more from you than you ever will from me.”

I don’t mind too much when people feel that way in movies, but when they have to say it, it is a pretty good sign that the film-makers are so uncertain that the formula is working that they just want to make sure we get the picture by spelling it out for us. In movies like this, that’s a clear signal that we’re in the land of “minority or disabled people as magical healers,” and that is never a healthy place to be for too long.

But great actors love great challenges (just look at how many Oscar winners played people with disabilities), so we find ourselves with many opportunities to go there. Sean Penn is a fine actor with a first-rate performance here as Sam Dawson, a retarded man who wipes the tables at Starbucks and wants to fight for custody of his daughter. Fellow star Michelle Pfeiffer has less to work with than she did as a similar character in “One Fine Day,” but manages a good fake smile and a nice crying scene. In smaller parts, Diane Wiest, Richard Schiff, Mary Steenburgen, and Laura Dern are all very fine as well, and the soundtrack of Beatles songs recorded by some of today’s best artists, is a genuine treat. The real miracle of the movie, though, is tiny Dakota Fanning as Sam’s daughter Lucy Diamond Dawson (named for the Beatles song). She gives a performance of such sincerity, subtlety, and delicacy that she almost carries the entire movie herself.

Although Lucy’s mother, a homeless woman, leaves right after Lucy is born, Sam does just fine at first, with help from an agoraphobic neighbor (Wiest) who explains when Lucy is a newborn that Sam should put on Nickelodeon and feed her when “Hogan’s Heroes” is on and then again at “I Dream of Jeannie.” Sam also gets some help from an entourage of retarded pals, and all goes along pretty well until Lucy, at age seven, begins to surpass Sam intellectually.

Then the big, bad wolf, in the form of Family Protective Services (Loretta Devine and West Wing’s Richard Schiff) try to take her away. Sam picks lawyer Rita Harrison (Michelle Pfeiffer) out of the phone book because her name is Beatle-ish. Rita turns out to be a driven perfectionist who gets her cardio in by racing up the 26 flights to her office screaming into her cell phone but snarfs down marshmallows and jelly beans when she feels vulnerable. At first she turns Sam down, but later, shamed into taking on a pro bono case, she agrees to represent him. And sure enough, she learns from Sam to take time to smell the roses and play with her own son. Even would-be adoptive mother Laura Dern, in what amounts to almost a tribute to Sam’s favorite movie, “Kramer vs. Kramer,” shows up in the middle of the night to cry about what a loving father he is.

If only they had trusted the material and the audience a little more, this would not feel so manipulative and dishonest. But by making anyone who thinks that maybe a child needs more than a retarded parent can provide look like a monster, they turn the characters into cardboard. The glowing last scene, with Sam performng in a role that is clearly beyond what he has been shown to be capable of, is just phoney. Yeah, I cried, but I was annoyed about it.

Parents should know that this movie has the requisite one f-word, now standard in PG-13 movies, and some other mild language. There is a stong reference to adultery. Lucy’s mother is a homeless woman who deserts her after she is born. Some children (and adults) will find the custody conflicts and discussion of parenting issues upsetting.

Families who see this movie should talk about what Sam should do to give Lucy everything she needs. What problems are they likely to have as she gets older? What did Rita learn from Sam, and why was it only Sam who could teach it to her? A number of the people in the movie struggle with parenting issues — there has never been a court proceeding in history that permitted such discussion of the family lives of all the participants and witnesses. How do you see those struggles in the families around you?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man. They should also read the wonderful Expecting Adam by Martha Beck.