Arka Mukhopadhyay
In Luke Greenfield’s 2011 romantic comedy movie ‘Something Borrowed,’ love comes in all shapes and sizes, from unrequited to college romance to casual flings. But it all boils down to a magnanimous complication as the drama spins out of control. Rachel ends up in a tricky corner with her affair with Dex, as Dex is engaged to Rachel’s best friend, Darcy.
With past longings coming to life and old friendships acquiring new meanings, the pair attempt to break from the shackles of their entangled situation, but it is never easy. Ginnifer Goodwin, John Krasinski, Kate Hudson, and Colin Egglesfield lead the cast with grace. A soundtrack filled with covers of popular 90s numbers set the mood for a forbidding and foreboding affair. If you seek to revisit the story’s final moments, allow us to decode them for you. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Something Borrowed Plot Synopsis
It is Rachel’s thirtieth birthday, and her bubbly lifelong best friend Darcy is great at throwing surprise parties. Rachel is not looking forward to surprises, as her withering youth saddens her. In the party with Rachel is Darcy and Rachel’s childhood prom date Ethan, who is busy hiding from persuasive Claire. Moreover, Darcy is marrying Rachel’s law school friend Dex, which indeed calls for a party.
Dex brings his chipmunk-lover womanizer friend Marcus, and Darcy thinks that they would be a perfect match. Ethan and Rachel have an honest conversation following the party, but Darcy has left her purse in the venue. Dex comes back to find Darcy’s purse, and Rachel leaves Ethan to help Dex. Dex asks Darcy out for a few more drinks. Rachel accidentally spills that she has had a crush on Dex since law school. They hop on a cab, and Dex kisses Rachel. With the past slowly unearthing, we know that the kiss is not abrupt, as they had unresolved feelings since law school.
Something Borrowed Ending: Do Rachel and Dex End Up Together? Does Rachel Feel Guilty?
In the movie, Rachel’s love for Dex is the “something borrowed” from Darcy, or at least, Rachel seems to feel it that way. Rachel is one of those people everyone thinks to be nice, but nobody knows much about it. In other words, Rachel suffers from the ‘Vanilla Sky’ syndrome, and she would go to a great length to hide her feelings. Darcy claims to know Rachel so very intimately, but she does not even know that her childhood best friend is having a fling with her fiancé.
Darcy is seemingly a bit too busy with herself to look around and see what’s going on. But on the sleepover, she divulges to Rachel that she is also having second thoughts about the marriage since she has cheated on Dex with someone. And in the pivotal point in the story, just before Darcy discovers Dex’s jacket in Rachel’s room, we come to know that the someone that Darcy is sleeping with is Dex’s chipmunk-lover caveman bud, Marcus. And guess what, Marcus is not circumcised and Darcy is pregnant!
Therefore, after two months, Rachel and Darcy have a decent conversation when the friends meet again on the road. Although they cannot get back to their old comradery, Rachel says her sorry. She does not have to be sorry for sleeping with Dex because that was the most plausible trajectory of her life after an unspoken romance with Dex in law school.
And following the revelation by Darcy, they score even, in a petty, childish way, but that is beyond the point. Rachel does feel sorry for hurting Darcy’s feelings, and ostensibly she should, since they have been BFFs since childhood, and it seems like the right thing to do. The least she could do is tell Rachel about the affair while she had the chance — but Dex musters up some courage and finds his voice against his uptight father. All’s well that ends well. But wait, some more questions remain.
Do Rachel And Dex Get Married?
You must be dying to know whether Rachel and Dex get married. That is supposed to be the conclusion – the significant reversal. After all, Dex breaks off his earlier marriage with Darcy to be with Rachel. And when we meet Rachel after two months, she is a changed person – confident and not shying away from confrontations. She is also apparently carrying a shirt of Dex home from the dry cleaners. When Rachel and Darcy cross paths, Darcy is keen to point out that she was the one who gifted Dex the shirt.
After the brief conversation, they go separate ways. We shall come to Darcy’s story later, but meanwhile, Rachel meets Dex on the way home, as Dex intently waits for her on a bench by the road. As they walk down the streets, Dex and Rachel hold hands, and this time Rachel does not hesitate. However, as the camera zooms in on their hands, we can’t see any engagement rings. Therefore, the lovebirds are seemingly taking it slow, and they have a life ahead of them (at least a sequel).
Who Does Darcy End Up with?
Darcy ends up with Marcus, but is that all? We all presume thus, but a mid-credit sequence changes some equations (here’s the place where some of you might go, “wait, is there a mid-credit sequence,” and we hear you). The mid-credit sequence takes us back to London, where Darcy is seen to be chasing none other than Ethan! Shortly before the crashing of the wedding, Ethan lets out before Rachel that he has feelings for her, but with the revelation of Rachel and Dex’s affair, Ethan knows that his feelings should better stay unrequited.
And following Darcy’s character trajectory, she is still in for a couple of bad life decisions. Ethan reacts the same way with Darcy as he would with Claire – he attempts to hide or flee the scene. The one movie Ethan mentions is Ivory-Merchant’s ’Remains of the Day,’ and we don’t see many similarities between Darcy and Ethan other than the missing link of Dex, who is seemingly the cause of both their ailments. Do they end up together? And what happens to the baby Darcy was pregnant with? The mid-credits scene keeps us guessing while we get to know that the story is “to be continued.”
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