Luke Greenfield's romantic comedy, based on Emily Giffin's novel of the same name, is an abysmal entry in the genre. It didn't help that 2011 saw similar but better films, like "Crazy, Stupid, Love" and "Friends With Benefits," steal the hearts of moviegoers. Though John Krasinski and Kate Hudson give good performances, "Something Borrowed" flops as a lackluster rehash of long-overdone tropes.
The story feels familiar: Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin), a successful woman and a great friend, is somehow still single but looking for love. When she falls into bed with longtime crush Dex (Colin Egglesfield), who is engaged to her best friend Darcy (Hudson), things get a bit dicey. On top of that, a guy Rachel is seeing, Ethan (Krasinski), is madly in love with her. It's not a love triangle, but a pot of jealousy and desire ready to boil over.
"Something Borrowed" is messy and lifeless, held together only by a couple of solid supporting performances. The New Yorker called the film a "joke-stoked soap opera" with a "bare bones" plot, exemplifying its monotony (via Rotten Tomatoes, where the movie holds an abysmal 15% critic rating). Despite all this, it did actually do decent business, bringing in over $60 million at the box office, nearly doubling its $35 million budget. Giffin wrote a sequel, "Something Blue," that was expected to lay the groundwork for a second film. However, Egglesfield told Showbiz Cheat Sheet that Warner Bros. has shown very little interest in moving forward.
