Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

For the finale of “Matthew McConaughey Romantic Comedy Month,” I’m going to take a look at the 2009 comedy, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.”

Peter Howell stated in his review, “Matthew McConaughey is a cad and a bounder in the Charles Dickens update Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, and here's where things gets interesting.”

Howell goes on to say, “The lanky Texan typically plays the scallywag, the boy-man who charms rather than offends. But youthful hijinks age into immaturity and insincerity, which no thinking person wants to watch.” McConaughey evidently understands this, seeing how he is close to 50.

Howell mentioned, “He deliberately curdles his cuteness in Ghosts, a high-concept romantic comedy co-starring Jennifer Garner that happily also boasts a high IQ.” McConaughey’s abhorrent Connor Mead uses his good looks to attract, use and throw away women. Connor is mature for reward, and he’s about to get it the way Ebenezer Scrooge did in A Christmas Carol, with nonsense ghosts and irritating guilt and an ending that’s never in doubt.

Despite knowing all of this, “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” is a joy to watch. Howell noted, “No recent romcom has had such wicked fun with formula, and a lot of this is due to the script by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. As for director Mark Waters, Ghosts represents a return to Mean Girls sharpness, after dulling things down with Just Like Heaven and The Spiderwick Chronicles.”

Most of all this is pure luck for McConaughey, who risks losing his audience by playing a character who is so hard to like, or forgive.

Connor is a Scotch-drinking fashion photographer and woman chaser who barely covers himself before looking for more women to get in bed with. He snickers at marriage, including the coming marriage of his brother Paul, played by Breckin Meyer, and rudely says that “the power of a relationship lies with whoever cares less.”

That women are able to tolerate Connor’s behavior, much less jump right on him the way many do, is maybe a larger fantasy than the film’s main pride of ghosts setting the man straight.

The first spirit is Connor’s late Uncle Wayne, played by Michael Douglas with a wink to the actor’s own well-earned reputation as, how Howell says it, “a roué (and that of Robert Evans, the notoriously priapic producer whom Douglas spoofs in dandified dress and manner).” As we see through phantom visitations arranged by Uncle Wayne, Connor was once a shy boy who couldn’t even ask a certain girl to dance.

The girl was the handsome but determined Jenny, played by Jennifer Garner, who seems wanting to be forever near Connor – she’s a guest in the brother’s wedding party – but never close enough to warm his cold heart.

Things might change after Connor learns the mistake in his past, on a ghostlike tour led by the ghost of Allison, played by Emma Stone, an 80s cliché with attitude, who was very briefly his first girlfriend. She takes Connor back to his teenage years (Logan Miller), where we learn that his misery over the unreliable Jenny (Christa B. Miller) led to his choice to grow up like his Uncle Wayne.

Howell said, “Take this stuff too seriously – as a few cranky critics evidently are – and you could work yourself up into a lather over the sexist implications of a good man turned bad by the wiles of women. But why do that?”

Howell continued, “You've got to love a movie that so eagerly assassinates its leading man's cuddly image, and which also manages to blow a wicked kiss to Fatal Attraction, which starred Douglas as the philandering hubby of Anne Archer.”

Yes, the still beautiful Anne Archer is also in this film playing the bride’s (Lacey Chabert) mom at the wedding, who is fumbled and propositioned by Connor. Howell ended his review by saying, “She gives him a look and a lecture that could boil a bunny, and that alone is worth the price of admission.”

I saw a part of this movie when I studied abroad in Mexico eight years ago with my roommate but I never finished it. It took me six years later to go back and finish the movie. When I saw the entire movie, I liked how this movie played around with A Christmas Carol storyline into a romantic comedy, and they actually did a hilarious job with it. Definitely see this film, especially if you’re a fan of lady’s man McConaughey or Jennifer Garner.

Well everyone, we have now come to the end of “Matthew McConaughey Romantic Comedy Month.” Stay tuned next month when I do this year’s installment of “Black History Film Month.”