A Haunting Past

Photo by Ron Batzdorff.

By Broadside Staff Writer Josh Hylton

Matthew McConaughey has hit a milestone in his career. He went an entire movie without gratuitously removing his shirt. Let a light shine through. But fear not, ladies—you still get to see those scrumptious abs, but this time, his upper body nakedness serves a purpose in the story.

So what of the story? Ghosts of Girlfriends Past works just as the name implies. It’s a parody of A Christmas Carol, except it isn’t set around Christmas and the lead character is visited by three ghosts who show him his mistakes with the opposite sex, rather than malcontent employees, in the past and present, finally finishing with the bleak future he is heading towards.

The character in question this time is not a cranky old grouch like Ebenezer. No, this time it’s Connor, played by Matthew McConaughey, a ladies’ man whose philosophy runs more along the lines of “hit it and quit it” rather than “hit it and then start a lasting relationship.” Yeah, he’s one of those guys. But one girl has always unknowingly been the object of his affection: Jenny, played by Jennifer Garner. Through the help of the three ghosts, he will come to learn of the love he has for her.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is like watching your favorite sports team pummel its opponent. You kind of enjoy it, but you wish something more exciting would happen. That’s not to say that the film is devoid of entertainment, but it’s so derivative of other better films that you pine for something a little more interesting.

The big gaping hole the movie faces is the fact that Connor is a scumbag, a possibly disease-ridden pervert who has literally slept with hundreds of women, all of which the ghosts of girlfriends past so kindly line up for him. The girls go as far as the eye can see and one can only wonder what type of infections he’s sporting south of the border, which begs the question, why would Jenny, aware of his sexual promiscuity, want to be with him?

The movie is also chock-full of clichés, even resorting to the obligatory race to the airport where the guy has to stop the girl from leaving and then deliver a heartfelt speech only possible in the movies that make everything okay. The problem is that the film doesn’t only deliver this banality, it relishes in it. Early in the movie, the ghosts of girlfriends past make Connor watch a montage of his romantic life, making a self-knowing reference about it along the way. Unfortunately, being self aware of your romantic montage doesn’t make it any less cliché.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past isn’t a bad movie, but you’ve seen it all before and it culminates into a sweet, but rudimentary exercise. During one of his visions, Connor tells one of the ghosts to wake him when something interesting happens. I suspect you’ll feel the same.