Something Borrowed: The Trailer

Emily Giffin’s 2005 chick lit novel, Something Borrowed, has been made into a movie:

Summary: “Plain” Jane Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin) sleeps with Dex (Colin Egglesfield), who happens to be engaged to Rachel’s lifelong best friend, Darcy (Kate Hudson).  This is problematic for the obvious reasons, but it’s exacerbated by the fact that Rachel is nice and Darcy is clearly a horrible human being (yet they’ve always been best friends, because Rachel is spineless).  Rachel is conflicted, and supported by her best male friend Ethan (John Krasinksi).

Shakesville sums up exactly what’s problematic about the film’s marketing, but I can take the analysis a little further.  I make a habit of reviewing movies on their trailers alone because it saves a lot of time seeing stupid, full-length films.  In this case, however, I have actually read the book Something Borrowed and its sequel, Something Blue, and can explain in detail why these stories are less feminist than they seem.

At this point, readers are scratching their heads and asking, “Um…how did this seem at all feminist in the first place?”

I understand your confusion.  Let me explain: when this book first caught my eye, I was intrigued by the author’s choice of narrator.  Too often, fiction written for women demonizes The Homewrecker: the slutty tramp who steals a poor, besotted sop from a Good Woman.  Rachel, the protagonist, is in the typical Homewrecker role, yet she’s portrayed sympathetically.  I thought, perhaps naively, that the story would show the complexity of romantic relationships and friendships.

Instead, the story is antifeminist in a less predictable way: it depicts Rachel with empathy but turns Darcy into a Bitch with a Capital B…and the sequel only makes things worse.  Spoilers for both books behind the cut: In Something Borrowed, we learn that Darcy has competed with Rachel all throughout childhood and adulthood for attention, romantic love, and academic scholarship.  Darcy was the competitive one even though she was already more beautiful, outgoing, and popular than nerdy, shy Rachel.  It was the case of the mean girl picking on the nerd girl, except they were best friends for…some reason.

I quickly discovered that the book did not, in fact, show the complexity of romantic relationships and friendships.  It only demonized a different character than originally expected.  Darcy was written as such a narcissist that I, the reader, was expected to completely absolve Rachel of any wrongdoing.  I wasn’t expected to be as forgiving of Dex, but only because he refused to commit to Rachel, not because he was unfaithful to Darcy, the woman he was supposed to marry.

In the end, Dex chooses Rachel, and Darcy reveals a secret that further absolves the young lovers’ actions: it turns out she was cheating on Dex the entire time he was cheating on her.  AND, the guy she cheated with was Dex’s best friend!  WHO Darcy originally tried to set up with Rachel (there she is, stealing Rachel’s lack of spotlight again!)  AND…wait for it…Darcy is now pregnant with this man’s child!

The story is robbed of all complexity because Darcy is an evil cartoon character that would never be friends with a “nice” person like Rachel in the first place.

But the fun doesn’t stop there.  Oh no.  Wait until you read about what happens in the sequel.

In Something Blue, the story is continued, told in Darcy’s point of view.  At first, she is embittered and angry and tries to make a relationship work with Marcus, the father of her unborn child.  He leaves her.  She tries to get Dex back by telling him that he is the father (of course).  He doesn’t fall for her trap.  Having nowhere to turn to, given that her parents are upset with her for having a child out of wedlock, she runs off to England to stay with Rachel’s best male friend, Ethan.

Can you see where this is going?

After a period of drinking and bitching and trying to keep her figure even though she’s endangering the life of her unborn child, Ethan tells her off.  Darcy is appropriately humbled and then begins her Great Redemption Tour.  This is how she learns and grows over the course of the novel:

1) She realizes that she was taking Rachel’s friendship for granted (ok, fair point).

2) She becomes more responsible as a parent (not a bad message in of itself, except for the annoying assumption that narcissistic women need to be pregnant to CURE them of their egocentrism).

3) She gives up the “frivolous” idea of having a daughter she can dress in frilly clothes when she finds out she’s pregnant with twin boys (because mothers who want daughters only want miniature copies of themselves, when mothers who want sons are more mature?  Um, WTF?!)

4) She dates her OB/GYN (ew).

5) She gives her sons the normal, proper names of John and Thomas instead of her original idea, Romeo (oh give me a fucking break).

6) She calls to tell Rachel about giving birth and sincerely congratulates Rachel on her wedding to Dex (not bad, okay, fine).

7) She falls in love with Ethan, but doesn’t tell him because she values their friendship too much, and doesn’t want to disrespect his relationship with the woman he’s dating.  Eventually, she ends her relationship with her OB/GYN in a respectful, honest way, even thinking Ethan will never return her affections…though of course he does, and after he breaks up with his girlfriend, he and Darcy get together and eventually get married.  He adopts her sons, who serve as the ring bearers at their wedding.

The Darcy/Ethan love story was one of the few things in the book I liked at all.  It wasn’t built on ickiness like the Rachel/Dex relationship from the first book, but on a close friendship.  Darcy’s boyfriend and Ethan’s girlfriend were not portrayed as selfish jerks who stood in the way of the couple’s true love, but as genuinely nice, interesting people who just happened to be incompatible with Darcy and Ethan.  Even so, I had a problem with the message that Darcy had to EARN Ethan’s love after he Learned Her A Lesson About Not Being Selfish.  I wouldn’t have minded if, say, Darcy had had an equally positive effect on Ethan where they learned from each other.

Instead, I had an impression of a story where a woman Learns a Lesson through the men in her life.

Sigh.