“The idea of life without him is not only unbearable, it’s unimaginable.”-Rachel, Something Borrowed.
I just recently re-watched Something Borrowed, the 2011 film about a woman named Rachel who has been in love with her best friend’s fiancé, Dex since they attended law school together; but whose life gets complicated when she learns he has feelings for her too.
What’s incredible about this movie is that it is able to get the audience to sympathize and root for Rachel who is cheating and lying throughout the entire film.
Her actions are that of a villain and not a protagonist, but we’re encouraged to side with her regardless and here’s why:
1. She wants something everyone wants
Rachel is relatable in that she wants something that most people want: to be loved. Not only that, she wants to be loved by Dex. And she wanted that long before Darcy even came into the picture, so we as audience members know her actions are not about malice, or getting it in, it’s about longing.
We’re shown this longing through flash backs of Rachel and Dex in law school and how they both hold back their true feelings in order to preserve their friendship. This restraint lasts for years until the moment Dex kisses Rachel in the back of their taxi.
With your own characters, think about how you can give them something they long for that most people also long for such as love, stability, family or success. That will make it easy for your readers to relate and care about your characters.
2. She feels remorse
Waking up to see her best friend’s fiancé in her bed, Rachel is not proud, she’s petrified. She understands what she did was wrong and that it could hurt her best friend as well as ruin their friendship.
Because she regrets her actions initially, the audience is made to side with her. We understand her because we have all done horrible things and regretted them. If Rachel had woken up feeling absolutely no guilt, and not taken responsibility for her actions, the audience would have pegged her as villainous.
After the incident, she does her best to avoid Dex unless she’s forced to interact with him, further demonstrating her guilt and willingness to move on.
Later in the story, we find out Darcy slept with Marcus while she was still with Dex. The audience feels much less sympathy for her because unlike Rachel, she doesn’t regret her actions.
3. She has good qualities
Aside from feeling remorse, Rachel has other positive qualities that make the audience like her.
When she’s not sleeping with her best friend’s fiancé, she’s a good friend to Darcy, and not in a manipulative way, in a genuine way. From the very first scene, we’re shown what a good friend she is by pretending to be surprised at her birthday party because she knows it would mean a lot to Darcy. She also does favors for Darcy on a regular basis, even when she’s inconvenienced by them.
In the middle of the film we’re shown that she has a high regard for other people’s feelings, even acquaintances, when she gently tells Claire that Ethan is not interested in her when he’s being too much of a coward to do so himself.
If you give your characters good qualities and provide scenes where they can demonstrate those qualities, their flaws and misdeeds will not prevent the audience from sympathizing with them.
4. She does everything she can do
In Alex Meyer’s video on why Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why failed for him, he explains how the main character, Hannah Baker, just wasn’t proactive enough to feel bad for. He felt that she could have alleviated her situation greatly if she had communicated with those who cared about her and actually wanted to help her. But instead she pushes those people away at every opportunity, she doesn’t tell anyone how she’s feeling, and she doesn’t ask for help, which made it harder for the audience to sympathize with her.
In Something Borrowed, although it takes a while, Rachel finally stands up to Darcy who had been taking advantage of her kindness the entire movie and she tells Dex how she feels and gives him an ultimatum. She does all she can do to get what she wants and when it doesn’t work out, she lets it go.
On the other end, the audience is less sympathetic towards Dex because he can’t make a decision. He’s not doing anything to fix his situation, he’s avoiding it by stringing Rachel along and lying to Darcy.
Weak characters are the ones who sit on the sidelines feeling bad for themselves. Sympathetic characters do everything they possibly can to get what they want. That makes your characters admirable and your readers root for them.
Has there been a character you were surprised to feel sympathy for?
