Something Borrowed

Only in the movies would the adorable Ginnifer Goodwin consistently be cast as the plain girl. In this adaptation of the first of Emily Giffin's companion novels, Something Borrowed and Something Blue, Goodwin is Rachel, a sweet but luckless-in-love attorney who's played second fiddle to her magnetic best friend, Darcy (Hudson), since childhood. Whatever Darcy wants, Darcy gets, up to and including the lantern-jawed law student named Dex (Egglesfield), whom Rachel's been pining for since the first day of class. That bit of boy-snatchery is seen in flashback; the bulk of this romantic comedy from the director of The Girl Next Door is set in the weeks leading up to Dex and Darcy's wedding, as Rachel weighs the value of her friendship against the wants of her heart. Oddly, the bond between the two women hardly concerns the filmmakers – only late in the film do we get a glimpse of what Darcy and Rachel see in each other. (A compelling case is never made for the much-desired Dex; Egglesfield is a catalog-pretty bore.) With its FM-pop soundtrack and heavy Heineken product placement, Something Borrowed is fairly uninspiring, but it still manages to ingratiate itself, largely through the efforts of Krasinski in a secondary part as Darcy and Rachel's tart-tongued pal, and Hudson, who snappily subverts her usual "How could you not love me?" giggling screen persona. In this kicky portrait of narcissism unbridled, it's no longer a rhetorical question but an all-out dare.