Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)

March 20, 2010

HBO Broadcast, Seattle, WA

** / ****

By Scott Muoio

I am not a regular viewer of “chick flicks.” However, my chick loves them. Something about sexy guys acting like turds and then redeeming themselves at the end always leaves my lady in tears. But why? These films almost always make men look stupid and women more so. I mean, come on, the only thing dumber than a blockhead dude that truly believes you can have your cake and eat it too is a woman that holds out forever for said blockhead while staunchly believing he will change. Duh! Then again, maybe that’s what ladies love. I’m just saying.

Case in point: the decidedly average Ghosts of Girlfriends past. Here we have hunky Matthew McConaughey riffing on the lecherous womanizer he played in Dazed and Confused. This time, however instead of being a 25 year-old creep preying on 17 year-olds he is a creepy 40 year-old superstar photographer that easily sleeps with an endless parade of youthful models. The pattern: every woman he meets is bedded, falls in love with him and then gets abruptly dumped, sometimes via four-way conference call. And yet, despite his insensitive antics, the women seem to want him even more. Of course!

Jennifer Garner plays McConaughey’s close childhood friend, a girl who gets less attractive both physically and personality wise with each passing year. No matter, McConaughey still enjoys verbal jousts with Garner while she continues to have the mega hots for him. Forget the fact that he has turned into the biggest male chauvinist pig on the planet. Love may be blind but in movies like this it’s stupid as well.

Anyway, after the two reconnect at the wedding of McConaughey’s younger brother (Breckin Meyer), McConaughey goes on a Christmas Carole-esque tour down conquest lane revisiting his Wilt Chamberlain like roll call of dunderheads. Splattered amongst the tour are a handful of intimate moments where McConaughey gets a glimpse of his adolescent self dropping the ball with a young Garner. It all leads to a hurt teenage McConaughey hooking up with his pimp daddy Uncle, Wayne (Michael Douglas). It is under the tutelage of Wayne that McConaughey transforms from kind, gentle boy to pick-up artist extraordinaire.

Enter McConaughey, back in the present, his flamboyant transformation complete and Garner still in denial over her never-ending crush. How in denial is she? Well, if seeing the rich, successful, supposedly attractive Garner continue to push aside handsome, eligible men for another chance to be emotionally smacked around by McConaughey isn’t evidence enough than you’re a fool. So smitten is Garner with McConaughey that she even goes so far as to neglect the wholesome advances of a genuinely perfect guy flown in specifically as her “wedding sex.” (That’s the movie’s term not mine). Oh, brother.

Anyway, it may be hard to construe from what I’ve just written, but even though this film is idiotic I didn’t totally hate it. It’s true. I laughed at Michael Douglas’s greasy persona and crude lines. I admired Lacy Chabert’s performance as the melting down bride-to-be and concerned friend (or whatever her relationship was to Garner). I even enjoyed Breckin Meyer’s diplomatic seriousness, the one performance that kept things real. But what I hated is how the movie takes the worst aspects of being a man and being a woman and tries to make us think our collective stupidity can be saved with a tidy ending. Life is hardly ever neat and tidy so why must the majority of chick flicks dumb things down to such an unbelievably dopey, unrealistic level? Suspension of disbelief is one thing but ironing out every wrinkle while taking the low, easy road in dissecting relationships is lazy filmmaking and only marginally entertaining. But I suppose that method is easy to digest, as is this formulaic bit of pointless cinematic diversion.

Director: Mark Waters

Producer: Brad Epstein, Jonathan Shestack, Marcus Viscidi

Writer: Jon Lucas, Scott Moore

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Emma Stone, Noureen DeWulf, Breckin Meyer, Lacey Chabert, Michael Douglas, Anne Archer

Original Music: Rolfe Kent

Cinematographer: Daryn Okada

Editor: Bruce Green