Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Marry Christmas! Because those jerks at the local theater wouldn’t give me Black Nativity, I was left without a movie to review on Christmas.

So I decided, fuck it, lets think outside the box.

I bought a DVD version of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past some years ago at a Black Friday sale, but never got around to watching it. So of course, this RomCom, is some weird alternative telling of A Christmas Carol.

Bridesmaids
Basically 100% identical, but this one has attractive women fawning over our main character instead of money.

Connor Mead (Matthew McConaughey) is a successful photographer of models for magazines. He is with a different woman every week, and then moves on, never getting in love, never getting serious, only having fun. Turns out he learned it from his mentor, Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas) after a bad prom in high school.

But now, his brother (Breckin Meyer) is getting married to the love of his life (Lacey Chabert), of which Connor doesn’t approve. It is not like Connor is going there to mess it up, he is just going to highly suggest it. Also at the wedding is his former fling, Jenny (Jennifer Garner), who he knew most of his life.

Either way, during the weekend wedding, for whatever reason, he learns he is going to get visited by the ghosts of girlfriends past. No, don’t worry, they didn’t all die or anything. It is just that they will appear to him in visions and talked about briefly. Of course girlfriend is a vague term, because he didn’t date any of them, he just hung out with some for about a week or two, and sexed a lot. Will a look into his past, present, or future sway his lifestyle and make him go for his one true love?

Emma Stone plays the ghost of girlfriend past, Noureen DeWulf of girlfriend present, and Daniel Sunjata plays an eligable bachelor who is interested in Jenny.

Cake
Lacey Chabert you recognize from Mean Girls. You are welcome.

It is strange going back to 2009 to see a movie of this nature. All because of Matthew McConaughey. Pre-2010 he had these roles a lot, like Failure To Launch or How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (both of which feature him leaning on the cover, fun fact). But now he has evolved into a much deeper actor. Bernie. Magic Mike. Dallas Buyers Club. Mud. The Lincoln Lawyer. So many damn movies.

But this is RomCom Matt, and he follows the formula perfectly.

In fact, this movie follows it way way too easily, and it doesn’t feel too important. He only one does one big act of love near the end. Everything else is jut playboy flirting. But I guess Jenny always loved him and never moved on, so it was easy to get her back at the end? Seems a bit silly.

It would make more sense if everyone knows the journey he went on over the three days, but they dont, that shit was all in his mind basically. Everyone didn’t get transported back to his awkward middle school years. Personal journeys don’t mean squat when no one can really see that you have changed outside of saying “Oh yeah, I have changed!”.

So I guess that’s my disappointment, as a man who tends to enjoy a nice RomCom. This one is a bit weak. It is original in the RomCom world (but obviously not itself, original) so that is cool. But it wraps up everything too neatly, even for RomCom standards.

2 out of 4.

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