Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Movie Review
"Ghosts of Girlfriends Past"
Review by Eric D. Snider
Grade: D
Rating: PG-13
Released: Friday, May 1, 2009
Directed by:
Cast:
At some point in the early 2000s, Matthew McConaughey stopped being a likable, laid-back everydude and started being an insufferable douchebag who I want to punch every time I see him. Surely I am not alone in this. McConaughey's self-effacing performance in "Tropic Thunder" made me think he was aware of how he is perceived, but here he is in "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," just as smarmy and mellow as ever, only now without satiric intent.
McConaughey plays an inveterate cad named Connor Mead, a fashion photographer who despises the institution of marriage and doesn't believe in true love. What he believes in is sex -- sex with as many beautiful women as he can get his hands on, sex with no commitment or obligations, sex with any attractive female who is willing to copulate with him.
His attitude toward women is fairly abusive, as is typical of romantic comedies aimed at female audiences. (Why female audiences enjoy that is a subject for another day.) When someone he's photographing says she's a singer, he replies, "You're already gorgeous! Why do you need to be good at two things?" Later, he breaks up with three girls at once, all via webcam. The singer witnesses this and flirtatiously says, "You're really as bad as they say!" To which he replies, "No, my dear, I'm even worse."
We expect that the film will be about Connor realizing he needs to change his ways, but here's what I jotted in my notes: Why reform when everyone likes him the way he is? Then I underlined it. Even women who think Connor is awful still sleep with him. In fact, they LOVE how awful he is. They throw themselves at him. He tells a woman to be upstairs in his bed, naked, waiting for him, and she rushes to comply. Why should he treat women more respectfully when his current system is working so well?
The film never answers that question, although it thinks it does. What happens is that Connor attends his brother's wedding, where he tries to convince the groom, Paul (Breckin Meyer), that marriage is terrible. (See? He's not just a bad boyfriend; he's also a bad brother.) Appropriately, the bride, Sandra (Lacey Chabert), is a controlling bridezilla, in case we forgot that the movie thinks girls are icky. Also in attendance is Jenny (Jennifer Garner), Connor's childhood friend and former sweetheart, and apparently the one woman on earth who has enough self-esteem to resist him (although just barely). Jenny calls Connor on his repulsive behavior, but her scolding doesn't have much effect when all the bridesmaids have either already slept with him or are trying to.
Then Connor is visited by the ghost of his Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas), who raised him and taught him the ways of the oily, over-tanned, dirty-martini-drinking lothario. Uncle Wayne was Connor's role model, a total playboy whose life was devoted to scoring with broads. But now, in death, Uncle Wayne is repentant -- no one misses him, you see. (Well, except Connor.) He died alone.
He tells Connor that he will be visited by three ghosts tonight, the ghosts of girlfriends past, present, and future, and they will show him the error of his ways. Only one of them, the one from the past, is an actual girlfriend, though. She's a dorky spaz named Allison (Emma Stone), and she was the first girl Connor made out with, way back in high school. The ghost of girlfriends present is Connor's no-nonsense personal assistant, Melanie (Noureen DeWulf), who has never been his girlfriend, and the one from the future is a Nordic-looking woman (Olga Maliouk) who doesn't speak or identify herself. In other words, the film has ONE concept -- a romantic-comedy version of "A Christmas Carol" -- and it can't even follow it correctly.
But anyway. Michael Douglas' performance as the ridiculous old Uncle Wayne, the sort of ladies' man who wears plush bathrobes and giant 1970s-style sunglasses, is the film's one consistent pleasure. (OK, I rather liked Anne Archer as the mother of the bride, too, but she isn't given much to do.) Douglas has the right attitude, i.e., that this should be a parody of swingin' bachelorhood, not a celebration of it. The director, Mark Waters, made "Mean Girls," so he must know what sharp, astute comedy looks like. (Curiously, he also made "Just Like Heaven," which also dealt with ghost girlfriends.)
But the screenplay, by "Four Christmases" duo Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, which has been floating around Hollywood for the better part of a decade (it was almost produced in 2003 with Ben Affleck in the lead), never comes to grips with the fact that Connor IS A LOATHSOME HUMAN BEING. As my colleague Todd Gilchrist wrote in an insightful essay at Cinematical, Connor's eventual decision to settle down comes not from a newfound appreciation for romantic love, but from a fear of dying alone. In other words, he's still acting entirely on selfish impulses. He has not learned the error of his ways at all! Yet the movie wants us to cheer him for having a "change of heart."
No, movie. I won't cheer him. I feel bad for the woman he settles down with, since he will either cheat on her or be miserable in monogamy. I feel bad for her for being delusional enough to think she can change him. But I don't feel bad for all the women who sleep with him, knowing what he's like, and then get upset when he doesn't call them the next day. They should have known better. And you, as moviegoers, should know better than to waste your time with this.
Grade: D
Rated PG-13, some profanity, a fair amount of vulgarity, lots of sexual innuendo
1 hr., 40 min.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
This item has 21 comments
May 7, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Thank you for the link to your friend's essay.
May 7, 2009 at 6:55 pm
I new this movie would be terrible but I watched it anyway. It was actually even worse than I thought and I totally agree with Eric. You can't possibly root for the guy or the women........so it loses as a romantic chick flick. It's even worse as a comedy as it isn't funny at all, and it's not really trying! Michael Douglas did improve it slightly, but this is definitely the worst movie I've seen this year.
May 7, 2009 at 10:17 pm
i totally agree with this review. i am ashamed of myself for sitting through the entire movie. i just kept thinking it would somehow improve. what a waste of time, money, and a girl's night out!
May 8, 2009 at 5:21 am
"who I want to punch every time I see" no "him" required.
May 8, 2009 at 8:55 am
But, Eric, how do you REALLY feel about McConaughey?
May 8, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Eric D. Snider, You are SO not alone in wanting to punch the insufferable douchbag in the face. I'm not usually this hateful, but I really can't stand him one tiny bit!!! I'm so sorry you had to watch this movie. I truly am.
May 8, 2009 at 8:59 pm
"WHOM I want to punch," actually.
May 9, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I feel the exact same way that you do, and now I am forced to see this insufferable douchebag in his movie with my fiance. At least it has Jennifer Garner who is smoking hot.
May 10, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Is that a joke, KP?
May 10, 2009 at 7:16 pm
I Want To Punch Matthew McConaghey In The Face Syndrome has reached England. Every time we walk past one of these posters, my boyfriend remarks on how much he hates the guy and how badly he wants to smack the smug look off his face. I wish I could claim I disagreed with him.
I won't be dragging him to see this movie, for the record: I'll be dragging him to see Star Trek again instead.
May 10, 2009 at 11:09 pm
I don't know why filmmakers think girls are actually rooting for a guy like that. I felt the same way in the movie "Made of Honor" -- the guy was a total jerk --- why should the audience WANT it to work out?
May 10, 2009 at 11:26 pm
I want to punch the writers in the face more than Matthew McConaghey. I mean, I don't like him at all........but How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days was decent. It was trying to be funny- and at times it was. I hate when movies try to be too serious when there is little chance the audience will have real emotions with such a shallow story.
May 12, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Hey! Sometimes a hot douchebag is just what you need to get you out of a slump. But you definitely should know better than to expect him to call you the next day. And when he does, you should never cease to be surprised. They like that. Lol.
May 15, 2009 at 9:14 am
I hate movies like this because it perpetuates the stereotype that all women want a cad. I never did and neither did my female friends. I ended up marrying a wonderful man who never did any of the horrible things "Playahs" did and that was a part of his appeal.
I also find it interesting that in films where women are lured into situations with playboys they are faulted--but in a movie where a man is manipulated by a conniving diva--he is a victim.
Shouldn't he had known better too?
*sigh*
I hate chick flicks.
May 15, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Thank you - sometimes I think my perceptions are off, that I'm just not in sync with the rest of the world. Yes he comes across as smug and smarmy. As a woman I don't understand what happened to the romance in romance - Hollywood doesn't seem to remember what love is. And I'll be at Star Trek with my hubby as well Lalia!
May 17, 2009 at 6:13 pm
I went into the theaters thinking this movie would be fairly good and came out thinking what a waste of time it was. I usually like movies with Jennifer Garner, but I didn't like this one. I thought only she and the personal assistant were fairly good in the movie. Ahh well, at least I now know not to recommend it.
May 19, 2009 at 7:24 pm
What I couldn't understand was how accepting women in the cinemea were of the loathesome character, yet when a very minor female character made the comment that she doesn't consider a man off limits unless he and his wife have had children, there was such a hiss of disapproval. Apparently a sexually depraved man is funny no matter how abusive and loathesome his behaviour is, but a woman who is just a minor character that the audience isn't being asked to emotionally invest is vile if she's not sweet Jenny whom the lothario is to be rewarded with. Ya.
May 27, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Premise is actually workable and good. But the sleaze factor which is unavoidable needed to be looked at as one would look at lab rat. After 10 minutes of this (when I checked out) I knew no one behind the camera was capable of this trick.
My last Matt rom-com was "How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days", which I did stick out to the end. I found it as terrible as the title was incoherent.
June 2, 2009 at 1:07 pm
I happened across your "review" of "Ghosts...Past" after my daughter came home saying she'd just seen it.
Your review is amazingly thorough and is thoughtfully written. However, I can only hope that you aren't so thorough with movies you happen to LIKE, because this is as much a synopsis of the entire story as it is a review of it. "Spoiler" doesn't come close to covering it. If your review was your way of getting people to stay away from the movie, out of boredom from having already learned the whole story in advance, then I'm sure you've succeeded in your efforts.
June 2, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Anyone who watches the first 20 minutes of this movie and doesn't know what will happen in the remaining 80 is not paying attention. I suspect people choosing to see this film are not doing so because they expect to be surprised by the twists in its plot.
June 8, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Pam: I've read almost all of Eric's movie reviews. He won't spoil a movie that isn't so obvious and predictable. Give it a shot and read some of his other reviews of movies that you have seen already (try not to pick a romantic comdey though). Have you seen the trailer for The Proposal? I don't need to watch 20 minutes of the movie to figure that one out-lol. The 90 second trailer gives it all away.