Something Borrowed Review: The Do’s and Don’ts of Friendship

There’s a popular notion that if you go to see a slasher film, you can’t complain about the inevitable violence, gore and clichés you’re about to witness. The same should be, or is, true for romantic comedies. When approaching Something Borrowed, you have to first willingly acknowledge the kind of movie you’re buying a ticket for, including the potential clichés of the genre. Make no mistake; Something Borrowed has its share, including an almost wedding, a dance sequence, a dramatic run towards a lover in the rain and a hefty side of cheese.

Something Borrowed, based on the novel by Emily Griffin to a screenplay by Jennie Snyder (Gilmore Girls) and  directed by Luke Greenfield, seems on the surface very much just a movie about what happens when you fall accidentally in love. But underneath, it’s actually about something more, which we’ll talk about a little later. Most people have a friend who requires a little more time in the spotlight than those around them. For Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin, Big Love), that person is her lifelong best friend Darcy (Kate Hudson). Darcy manages to turn every small moment in her life into a dramatic production, and then turn any moment in Rachel’s into a showcase for her as well. Take for instance the 30^th birthday party the film opens with, a surprise for Rachel from Darcy featuring a Darcy-centric slideshow, speech, and later, dance on top of the bar. But they’ve been friends forever. That’s why Rachel didn’t mind when Darcy started dating Rachel’s law school crush Dex (Colin Egglesfield, Melrose Place), and what also didn’t stop her from agreeing to be the maid of honor at their wedding.

After her party ends, while grabbing one last drink, Rachel lets her feelings to Dex slip out. The two share a cab home and wind up sleeping together. The next morning, Darcy announces her plan for all of their friends to spend as much time as possible at a house in the Hamptons that summer, which includes their childhood friend Ethan (John Krasinski), Dex’s friend Marcus (Steve Howey) and Ethan’s somewhat stalker Claire (Ashley Williams). From here onward, it’s a tangle of lies from every imaginable angle, several romantic confessions, a surprising hookup and more than one breakup.

I’ve got to be honest; overall I kind of enjoyed Something Borrowed. After several seasons of Big Love, I’m really hoping Ginnifer Goodwin manages to break into features in a big way. She’s a refreshing change from the normal leading ladies of this genre, including her co-star Hudson. Maybe it’s because her picture isn’t plastered across the cover of glossy weeklys on a regular basis that she brings a certain muted fragility and awkward uneasiness to the role.

It takes a different kind of likability to get the audience to root for an affair to win out over an engagement, and Goodwin sells it in a surprisingly innocent way. For her part, Hudson’s turn as the self-infatuated best friend is adequate, though it seems like she’s drunkenly slurring her speech in every scene—a move I’m sure was meant to make her seem less intelligible, but is distracting in more than one moment.

Egglesfield does his best, but probably won’t fly up any director’s leading man lists soon, though he brings charm and a set of sparkling eyes to the table. But Dex is a conflicted character and, if anyone didn’t live up to their story arc, it was unfortunately him. It doesn’t help to be overshadowed by the completely adorkable Krasinski, who does what he did so well for the first three seasons of The Office, managing to win you over in elongated scenes without a word. An actor who could really use a big screen hit, Krasinsky ‘s dodging game with the obsessed Claire adds much needed levity to the first four minutes. His character, though equally as developed as the other leads, is ultimately the one who garners the most sympathy. We all deserve a friend like Ethan; he says what needs to be said, not what we want to hear.

Really, my only large criticism is that it takes an awful long time for Rachel and Dex to even acknowledge they’ve slept together, let alone discuss it at any length. Honestly, this was the only element of the story that truly didn’t feel real. I understand the natural instinct of avoidance that might surround such a situation, but they spend enough time in each other’s company that it might have burst out sooner.

Once the two begin a quiet affair, things do pick up. Everything from there on seems rather grounded in the reality of the situation with pretty honest, realistic outcomes. This isn’t typical romcom fair. I can’t imagine an impossibly happy end for everyone after your best friend has slept with your fiancée and failed to tell you about it for some time.

At its core, Something Borrowed is about two things—friendship and the lies we tell ourselves to stay complacently happy. Sometimes these two forces intersect, and the aftermath isn’t always easy to take. That’s what sets this movie apart from its brethren, a sense of grounded reality inherently derived from its source material. Fans of the genre will either find themselves surprised by a slightly more thoughtful kind of romance, or a little lost waiting for their impossibly happy ending. Viewers familiar with the novel should be sure to stay through the end credits, where a scene teasing the events of the literary sequel, Something Blue, pops up as an optimistic cherry on top.

Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.