Movies like Something Borrowed drive me absolutely batcrap insane. This is the type of movie torturers show in order to induce a confession. Something Borrowed takes everything that's good about the bonds of female friendship and takes a big fat dump all over them. But it's got a lot of pretty faces. Isn't that enough? Not when every single character is so damn hard to like and unbearable to watch.
Ginnifer Goodwin takes a swing at playing the hot chick we're supposed to believe is a lonely spinster. She's Rachel, a successful, beautiful woman who of course couldn't lure men in if she wore a bacon necklace. Her best friend, Darcy(Kate Hudson), is a fire cracker and the life of the party. Always the center of attention, Darcy has made a life of getting her way, no matter the cost. It's only gotten worse now that she's engaged to Dex(Colin Egglesfield), Rachel's law school classmate and longtime crush. After a drunken binge, Rachel trips and falls into a one night stand with Darcy's future hubby. Think that might make planning the big day a bit complicated? A little awkward, maybe?
I knew Something Borrowed would be a wild misfire months ago, as the studio tried desperately to craft a trailer that doesn't make Rachel look like a skank biscuit. They failed then, and the movie fails even moreso. To root for someone like Rachel, you have to make Darcy look like one evil, spoiled bi*tch. Screenwriter Jenny Urman tries desperately to make us hate her, but never quite commits fully until it becomes a necessity at the very end of the film. The other major issue is that it's not believable that any of these people would be friends, much less fall in love with each other. Darcy and Rachel are polar opposites who's supposedly longtime friendship is so thin that neither hesitates to completely ruin the other's life. For a movie like this to work you really have to sell us on the relationships.
Goodwin is perky and charming and you want to like her so much, but she's such a total basketcase it's apparent pretty early that she'll never be worth it. Hudson is merely playing a version of her Bride Wars character, while Egglesfield is a total stiff. Did anybody check to make sure he wasn't just a really pretty corpse while on set? The only thing saving the film from total disaster is John Krasinski as Ethan, Darcy's ex and Rachel's conscience. He gets to sit back and lob insults and take barbed jabs as he watches everybody he knows act like complete idiots. Krasinski's the only one who escapes from this misguided train wreck unscathed.
