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Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 30 Critics What's this?

User Score

Mixed or average reviews- based on 40 Ratings

  • Starring: Colin Egglesfield, Ginnifer Goodwin, Kate Hudson
  • Summary: Rachel is a talented attorney at a top New York law firm, a generous and loyal friend and, unhappily, still single...as her engaged best friend Darcy is constantly reminding her. But after one drink too many at her 30th birthday party, perpetual good girl Rachel unexpectedly ends up in bed with the guy she's had a crush on since law school, Dex, who just happens to be Darcy's fiancĂ©. When Rachel and Darcy's lifelong friendship collides with true love, it leads to unexpected complications and potentially explosive romantic revelations. Meanwhile, Ethan, who has been Rachel's constant confidante and sometimes conscience, has been harboring a secret of his own, and Marcus, an irrepressible womanizer, can't keep his mind out of the gutter or his hands off any girl within reach. (Warner Bros. Pictures)

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 30
  2. Negative: 10 out of 30
  1. Reviewed by: Pete Hammond
    May 4, 2011
    70
    The film is terrific: smart, sexy and funny.
  2. Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    May 6, 2011
    50
    It's a testament to Goodwin's skill as an actress that we almost buy this.
  3. Reviewed by: Connie Ogle
    May 12, 2011
    50
    Something Borrowed commits the most fatal mistake of all: Its characters are so deeply uninteresting that the audience can't get invested in their eventual happiness.
  4. Reviewed by: Stephanie Merry
    May 6, 2011
    38
    Something Borrowed clinches it: It is not okay to sleep with the fiance of one's best friend. What's odd, and ultimately icky, is how enthusiastically the film attempts to justify doing so.

See all 30 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 14
  2. Negative: 8 out of 14
  1. I think that this movie was a romantic comedy. I loved watching this movie i could watch it all day. People say that it was a bad movie but how many or you people could write a movie like that ? It was a wonderful movie that I think she be rated 10 outta 10. Maybe not the best movie for kids because of the sexual things :) Loved it ! wouldn't mind a part-two to the movie. Expand
  2. 8
    I did enjoy it; nevertheless, I understand why some people wouldn't. I am myself not into flick chick's stuff, even though I am a girl myself...but there is something about this movie that kept me watching it... I found it engaging, and easy. They used the typical antagonistic stereotypes of the 'crazy, popular girl' and the 'cute, smart, shy girl'. Darcey (Kate Hudson)was a bit too much for me. Her character is utterly egocentric , loud, cheap, and shallow; at times, however, she shows this loving side with Rachel..(Ginnifer Goodwin). On the other hand, Rachel is soothing, sweet, quiet , conservative, noble and at times frail..she is doing something is not considered 'ethical' and she knows it, but wouldn't her choice- mo matter what that is- hurt someone anyway?. Dex can be frustrating because he appears to be weak and indecisive, yet none of them is 'bad' or 'good' they are just real people facing a big emotional issue and in this case, either if something is done about it or not, they know someone will get hurt. I guess you have to watch this movie taking as it is : a simple, romantic story, with fairly stereotyped characters, and not overly witty. Don't expect a moral lesson, or ethics, because a movie is not meant to teach that, and don't we have all different perspectives about how to deal with things?. You may question the values of the characters of this movie...but remember it is not real life (although, situations like this definitely happen in life...who are we to judge?). Finally, be ready for a bit of that 'corney' stuff that most of romantic American comedies are filled with. Personally, I wouldn't label this as a 'comedy'. I think you will have a good time watching it, if you lower your expectations a bit... and do not expect great rhetoric, moral lessons or philosophical treatises...( I love them, but I do not expect them on this kind of films) Expand
  3. The film in general is bad, bland, but entertaining. The end of the film is depressing.
  4. 2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Three months into rehearsals, indie stalwart Sarah Polley bowed out from "Almost Famous" where she was was set to play the role of a legendary rock groupie. Citing her own personal realization that she wasn't the sort of girl who could light up a room as the reason for quitting on the spot, Kate Hudson(originally slated to play William Miller's sister Anita) took over the role of Penny Lane from the maverick actress, parlaying this piece of manna from heaven into an Academy Award nomination. Polley was wrong, of course. She could be an aurora, if pressed. During the rave scene in "Go", the moviegoer sees what would turn out to be a rare occurrence, the sight of Polley having fun, no less, dancing, which must have convinced Crowe that he had found his main Band Aid. Although the illumination in the warehouse is minimal at best, Polley manages to move above the darkness of the dance floor. You could say she lights it up. While the official record shows that it is Hudson who adroitly demonstrates(in a scene which may have intimidated Polley) the ability to be the center of attention, a life force, when she brightens the natural light in a hotel room hootenanny with her best stewardess imitation("Ladies and gentleman...), the body of work the slumping actress has produced since her 2000 star-turn suggests that the director of "Away From Her" might have been equally up to the task. By some fluke coincidence, in "Desert Blue", Hudson, playing a Hollywood actress who befriends a group of rural outback kids after the two-bit town gets placed under quarantine, asks her newfound friends, while huddled around a campfire, "What if this is our last night? What do you want to do?" Skye promptly kisses Blue. Polley, as Nicole Burnell, sits down with her dysfunctional family for one final disquieting supper, in "The Sweet Hereafter", a movie about the last night on earth,which takes a decidedly anti-Hollywood approach to an impending catastrophic disaster. In retrospect, it's a pity that Hudson couldn't simply borrow Penny Lane, then give the role back to its rightful owner. With each passing year, Hudson seems to be incrementally becoming famous for being famous. If Sarah Polley was a household name, she would be known for good movies, not disposable junk such as "Something Borrowed", yet another forgettable entry in a long line of bad rom-coms for this one-time ingenue. In "Bride Wars", like Rachel, a successful defense attorney, who, at thirty, feels as if she's fast becoming an aging spinster, the best friend, Emma, a schoolteacher, fights back, when a similarly aggressive Hudson character behaves badly. "Something Borrowed" has the slight advantage of being less cartoonish than "Bride Wars", but Hudson, more or less, remains the same. Angry over Emma's disinclination to reschedule her Plaza wedding after an unfortunate same-day double-booking, Liv throws down the gauntlet at the schoolteacher's spray tanning session, whose outcome results in the lawyer's oldest and dearest friend looking either like an Oompa Loompa, or Q-Bert. The association should end right then and there, as it would in real life, but the war escalates to epic proportions, concluding with Liv's original plan to play an incriminating spring break DVD of Emma during the actual ceremony, come to fruition. This time out, it's the best friend who's in the law profession, but Rachel is no more smarter than Emma, as evidenced by her continuing friendship with Darcy, even though she had intervened on a perfect love match. In pertaining to the girlfriend switcheroo at that long ago bar booth, a date which should live in infamy from Rachel's vantage point, the film seems to be under the pretense, however naively, that Darcy unwittingly stole Dex away from her alleged best friend. Rachel, as written, is so stupid, rooting for this willing doormat proves to be a chore. The moviegoer waits in vain for an epiphany in Southampton. Alas, Rachel never figures out, because "Something Borrowed" never admits, that Darcy's poaching was a calculated act. In any other case, nine months of incessant talk about one guy would present itself as an indication to most best friends that their closest confidant is unequivocally in love. Without this knowledge, the affair Rachel has with Dex gets weighed unfairly against her. Morally, it would still be wrong, but not indefensibly so. When Darcy asks Rachel to write her wedding vows, "Something Borrowed" recalls the play "Cyrano de Bergerac", which perhaps reveals the film's problem may lie in its umpteenth presentation of the old "Pygmallion" trope. Whereas Cyrano had a large nose, Rachel wore unflattering glasses back in law school as an explanation for her feelings of inadequacy. Now, as a finished product, a transformed beauty, Rachel should address what went down the night that Darcy asked Dex out, but the torrid argument only covers the second betrayal. Expand

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