Delayed Reaction: Something Borrowed

Premise: A woman sleeps with her best friend's fiancé and tries to keep it a secret for long enough to figure out what it means.

 

I suspect that something was lost in the translation of this from book to film. In the abstract, I see the appeal of this story. It's a movie about reshuffling of relationships. Much of it is a cautionary tale about always putting others before yourself (or at the very least, with never speaking up for what you want). It has plenty of RomCom hijinks. The cast is all pretty people of a similar age with romantic and comedy movie backgrounds. I pretty much picked this movie thinking, "with that cast, I'm sure to find something to like about it."

 

However, everything about this movie is calibrated wrong. It starts off, without any other context, with Ginnifer Goodwin sleeping with her best friend's finance. It's odd to give an audience someone as immediately likable as Goodwin and start her off with such an unlikable decision. Kate Hudson, playing the best friend, is awful for most of the movie to the point where I don't understand why she and Goodwin are best friends. More importantly, I don't believe that they are best friends. At best, they are two people who can't get rid of one another. Colin Egglesfield as the fiancé is a complete dud. Like, I guess he's good looking, but there's a reason why I don't know his name, couldn't tell you another movie he's in, or pick him out of a lineup. He does not work in his movie. He's not funny. He doesn't have chemistry with Goodwin or Hudson. I wonder how much casting Chris Pine instead would've salvaged this movie. John Krasinski is too much in "sarcastic Jim" mode and spends most of the movie bad-mouthing Hudson to Goodwin, which is not a good look. The movie is just plain contemptuous of Steve Howey and Ashley Williams most of the time. I don't know what I'm supposed to be rooting for throughout. Other than, of course, for everyone to be in a movie that used them better.

 

It's a shame that Goodwin didn't get more shots at leading this kind of movie, because she's really perfect for it. She even makes parts of this work for small stretches. Hudson is actually giving a good performance. The movie doesn't know what to do with it though. I wonder how closely this movie lines up with the book, because it sure feels like there's a way to reorganize some of the scenes and alter the characters to make this a very enjoyable RomCom. As is, it's just another example of the early 2010s RomCom wasteland.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend