Something Borrowed

Released: 6th May 2011

Directed By: Luke Greenfield

Starring: Ginnifer Goodwin, Kate Hudson, John Krasinski

Certificate: 12

Reviewed By: Gerry Carey

I will begin by saying that I am typically not a fan of the rom-com genre. Movies like Knocked Up and Wedding Crashers have ruined me. When I watch a movie that sets out to make me laugh while also pulling at my heartstrings, I expect to find the movie funny and also want the main characters to end up together. Spoiler alert: This movie failed miserably to deliver on both fronts.

Something Borrowed is the story of Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin) and her best, but belittling, friend, Darcy (Kate Hudson). Rachel drunkenly sleeps with Darcy’s fiance, whom Rachel has had a crush on since law school. Rachel and Dex, said fiance, initially try to forget the incident but they eventually feel that they might have something more than a simple one night stand in store.

Ginnifer Goodwin is our main protagonist in this flick. Her character’smost glaring attributes are: her lack of confidence, her lack of wit, and her lack of any interesting characteristic. She inspires nothing but frustration throughout the movie. And she looks like a boring skinny girl that used to be a boring fat girl. Kate Hudson is Kate Hudson. She is annoying but she’s supposed to be. Dex, played by Colin Egglesfield, is nothing but handsome. And he is somehow handsome in an extremely boring way. Like handsome enough to get you one shot at a major movie and once the movie is terrible, you might get one guest appearance on Law and Order: SVU and subsequently call it a career.

The premise of this movie is totally unoriginal, but that’s to be expected with movies like these. The problem I have is with what happens after we are presented with the conflict of the movie. After Rachel and Dex touch each other’s underparts, they start their strange not-relationship relationship where they text and write each other a lot but don’t spend any time together. The rest of the movie is Rachel getting mad a Dex for not calling off his wedding, Dex telling Rachel he loves her, and repeat. They don’t wait to get the “I love you’s” out until the end. They get them out of the way about 30 minutes into the movie. The next 1 hour and 22 minutes of the movie is the most tedious back and forth I’ve seen.

I can’t think of anything nice to say about Something Borrowed, so instead I will say something that isn’t scathing. John Krasinski is almost charming in this movie. He looks like our friend John, he sounds like our friend John, but when it comes times for a witty comment, the writers just couldn’t make him be funny like John. Somehow this movie turned our pal John into a boring character. A travesty.

So this movie is frustrating. It’s not funny. It’s boring. I didn’t like it at all. I don’t see how anyone could. Don’t rent, borrow, or even discuss this movie no matter what. If you must, read the Wikipedia page. Even that is boring.