After having his heart broken at a high school dance, Connor Mead (Matthew McConaughey) is taken to a bar by his Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas), where he convinces the young whippersnapper that marriage is for the birds. The best piece of advice Uncle Wayne gives to Connor is: “The power lies with the one who cares the least.”
When watching Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, that advice could not be truer. Those who care the least about cinematography, character development, realistic dialogue, or basically anything that makes for a good film, will enjoy this movie the most. For example, the women sitting next to me who were gushing over the women in wedding dresses probably loved the shit out of this movie. The girls in front of me who gasped every time McConaughey almost took his shirt off probably can’t wait to buy the DVD. The guy behind me laughing uproariously obviously enjoyed it even though he will never tell his friends. Ghosts is a romantic comedy, through and through, no ifs ands or buts about it. If you like that sort of thing, you’ll love this.
The filmis essentially a retooling of A Christmas Carol only without all the Christmas-y stuff. Connor is photographer who has earned a reputation for being loose with the ladies. When he arrives at his kid brother’s wedding its only a matter of time before he has hit on the bride’s mother and made plans with the bridesmaid. It also just so happens that the girl who broke his heart at the dance, Jenny Perotti (Jennifer Garner), is also the maid of honor.
Before Connor can follow through with his bridesmaid, he is visited by three ghosts — the ghosts of girlfriends past, future, and present. Connor goes through the predictable series of emotions that one would expect when looking at the past before ultimately realizing he does believe in love and that his high school crush is for him. There is no spoiler warning because everybody knew that was going to happen before they even sat down in the seats.
The movie isn’t all that bad. It’s light and fun-spirited and even had me sheepishly laughing out loud a few times. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t take this Christmas Carol thing and run with it. Why not release this in November as a Christmas movie and make a killing? The juxtaposition is actually quite clever and carried out very well, so just take it the next step--throw some Christmas trees in there and take the sappiness to a whole new level. Regardless, the ladies will enjoy this movie for obvious reasons, and guys should enjoy this movie because it will probably get them laid.
--Clark Herer
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