Something Borrowed: Time to return those cliches

Ginnifer Goodwin and Kate Hudson vie for the groom in "Something Borrowed."David Lee/Warner Bros.

Something old

The link between comedy and romance is ancient. In Shakespeare's day, a comedy was simply a play that ended with a wedding. Naturally, the course of true love never did run smooth, otherwise you wouldn't have a plot. Shakespeare favoured obstructive parents and mistaken identities. Hollywood's rom coms often add a psychological element: She is too busy working to notice he loves her; he is too fearful of commitment to know what is good for him. Of course, if you are going to film a rom com you need a fresh angle on the old story, you need your …

Something new

The premise of Something Borrowed, a romantic comedy based on the novel by Emily Giffin, is that Rachel (a saccharine Ginnifer Goodwin) is a self-effacing young lawyer soon to play bridesmaid to her best friend, the self-absorbed party girl Darcy (Kate Hudson). It was Rachel who introduced Darcy to her solid and sensitive fiancé Dex (Colin Egglesfield) - the pair were study partners in law school. There, they missed what is written all over a few flashbacks: They are made for each other. When Rachel drunkenly confesses to Dex that she always had a crush on him, he replies by taking her in his arms, and an affair begins just weeks before the wedding.

This is apparently okay because Rachel is a very nice person while Darcy is a controlling and narcissistic man-eater who will stop at no subterfuge to get what she wants. (Hudson is the only performer having any fun here.) And that stereotype is apparently okay because director Luke Greenfield includes a not-so-sly wink at it by showing the climactic scene from that notorious artifact of misogyny, Fatal Attraction, playing on Rachel's TV. Acknowledging a problem, however, doesn't necessarily solve it. You have to be careful where you draw from when you trot out ...

Something Borrowed

The sisterhood is already grumbling about a movie that suggests women will happily choose a mate over friendship, but actually it's the stereotypes of good behaviour rather than bad that bring this rom com crashing down.

While Dex is given some emphatically stated motivations for going ahead with the wedding - he is a creature of duty saddled with an authoritarian father and a depressive mother - there is no plausible reason for both his and Rachel's reticence back in law school.

Rachel is an Austen-ian heroine: the bookish girl whose worth will eventually be recognized by the dashing hero. These plots greatly appeal to the bookish girls in the audience, but are peopled by outdated ladies who lack control of their own destinies. Bridget Jones's Diary, which directly borrowed its story from Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, managed to update the tale, but here we are just left to wonder how Rachel could possibly have been so dim, so submissive and so chaste since the film lacks any hint of …

Something Blue

Sex is discussed a lot in this movie; we hear Darcy's orgasm; Rachel is being pursued by an offensive stud whose idea of courtship is telling her he was thinking of her while masturbating. But sex is never actually shown. On the two occasions when Rachel and Dex wind up in bed together, they have sheets up to their necks. Apparently, there are some things that nice girls still don't do.

Something Borrowed