Fridae

Amazingly after the golden age between the 30s to 50s (headed by Ernest Lubitsch) and a revival by John Hughes in the 80s, Hollywood is currently bereft of screenwriting, director, and producing talent for rom-coms.

Something Borrowed is proof of this, by virtue of its pedigree as an adaptation of a bestselling chick-lit novel. For those who haven’t devoured the book, the story tells of a mousy do-gooder 30-year-old lawyer (Ginnifer Goodwin) who sleeps with her sassy best friend’s (Kate Hudson) fiancé (Colin Egglesfield) a month before the wedding. Will they get it on and call it off or being goody two shoes characters, will they instead call it off and get it on?

As it turns out, something went horribly wrong from page to screen. It could be that certain ideas or genres don’t travel well to screen. There’s nothing more painful in a romcom than having both male and female leads as passive, indecisive and dull characters. The rule is that at least one of them needs to take charge; failing which the male and female leads shouldn’t have that much screentime and focus as opposed to their funnier foils – in this case, Kate Hudson as the best friend/frenemy and John Krasinski as the gay best friend and confidante.

As it turns out, both Kate Hudson and John Krasinski’s comic talents are criminally underused in this film. For some reason, the script doesn’t really know what to do with a self-centred, carnally oriented bimbo best frenemy character. Kate Hudson has far too little screentime and funny lines than one would expect. John Krasinski fares even worse, playing a best friend character who turns out to be the gay best friend who turns out to be just faking it to get rid of a scary female suitor.

As a result of flouting some basic rules of romcoms, there is an air of negative consequentiality to the film and its script. We recommend this film only if you’re in an easily entertained mode or you really want to see a rom-com this week, come hell or high water.