Something Borrowed

WARNING: This review is hidden because it reveals the content of the film.
Click here to show this review. "Something Borrowed" feels like a drama that showed off the impact of friendships betrayed and relationships falling apart that audiences responded negatively to… that was re-written as a bad romantic comedy. After many years of being friends, Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Dex (Colin Egglesfield) have a few too many drinks and end up sleeping together. Awkward morning right? Well, it’s not too bad because it’s clear that they’re both attracted to each other and have been for some time. What is awkward is that Dex is engaged to Rachel’s best friend Darcy (Kate Hudson) What’s even more a problematic is that Dex and Rachel had their chance to begin dating years ago, but neither of them made a move so Darcy did by asking Dex out. What is at first thought to have been a mistake or a one-night stand develops into an affair. The question is how will everyone end up?

There are many, many problems with the film and the most glaring is the casting. Colin Egglesfield is so handsome that you don't believe for a second that he wouldn't be man enough to ask the girl he's really after out (the movie even goes out of its way to show how attractive he is by having women at the bar scowling at the girl he's with and basically begging him to come over and talk to them) Ginnifer Goodwin is also badly cast because she is too attractive. Had she been a mousy or slightly overweight girl that had a great personality you could believe that Dex would go for the super-hot friend Darcy instead of the obvious choice, but the way the movie plays out with this cast it feels like "Beautiful people with lots of money and drama, the movie".

The plot of the film is deeply flawed and often the characters act without any logic. Darcy and Dex are both lawyers after all, so that means they should have some smarts but they find themselves in stupid situations repeatedly. Kate Hudson's character Darcy has zero chemistry with everyone else because the movie goes out of its way to make her completely unlikeable, almost to a cartoonish level. I understand that she’s supposed to be the villain of the picture, the one preventing the “true love” couple from getting together, but it doesn’t make any sense. As the movie goes along you realize that there is no reason for Dex to be engaged to her because there is never a moment where it feels like they're in love, or even for Rachel and Darcy to be friends. I realize that a lot of people have that kind of relationship where one person basically dominates over the other and they’re codependent in a very strange way that seems almost abusive… but once again, Rachel is not some run-of-the-mill high schooler, she’s a lawyer! Once Darcy and Dex start having an affair (because they go out of their way to keep sleeping with each other) the movie starts showing you flashbacks of why they're both "the one that got away" but that won't counter the fact that these two people are betraying themselves and all of their friends.

The end of the movie feels completely phony, with revelations that feel like last minute re-writes to justify the actions of the main characters. There are 3 characters that reveal some secrets that will make you wonder how any of these people are friends and how they could go through the whole movie acting the way they did when they were hiding all of these secrets the whole time. There is also a post-credit scene that is supposed to make you laugh but it makes no sense and will make you hate this nearly 2-hour long train wreck of a "romantic comedy".

The film is well shot and the acting is fine but other than that, very little in the movie works."Something Borrowed" is a romantic drama/comedy that has a lot of lame drama, few laughs and isn't very romantic at all. (On Blu-ray, February 15, 2013)