Review: ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past’

Ladies… are you ready? Matthew McConaughey is back again for another romantic comedy with another very attractive actress with whom his character will experience the ups and downs of a Hollywood relationship. This time around, Matty-boy will have his go with Jennifer Garner as female audiences across the country swoon and daydream that it is they who are being held in the modern-day dream guy’s arms. Oh, wait a second… ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past’ is actually a good movie? Hold up! Yeah, just checked and I am still of the male gender of the species, and I really liked this movie.

Let me first run through the general premise for you, despite the fact that the trailer will give you just about everything you need to know about the story, well… that and having ever seen any one of the many incarnations of ‘A Christmas Carol’. Connor Mead (McConaughey) is an insanely successful, high-profile photographer that snaps vogue shots of any and every hot celebrity and model there is and coincidentally receives a certain bonus with each of his clients as well… if you know what I mean. Connor is living the good life, partying hard and experiencing the pleasures of the opposite sex, but when he attends his kid brother’s wedding he soon discovers that the life he’s leading is not destined to remain a paradise on Earth forever.

As he proceeds to ruin his brother’s wedding with his predictably arogant behavior, Connor is suddenly visited by the ghost of his dead Uncle Wayne, who lived as a playboy and taught Connor everything he knows about being a player. As it turns out, Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas) has returned to set right the mistakes he made in turning the once kind-hearted Connor into the train wreck of a ladies’ man his is today, warning him that three ghosts will visit him the night before his brother’s wedding to reveal to him feelings and memories he has long since forgotten. This will be Connor’s wake up call and one last chance to change his life for the better. Sound familiar?

All relevancy’s to other stories and cliched plot devices aside, I stand firm in my opinion that this is one of few modern romantic comedies to emerge from Hollywood that I gladly stand behind. In all seriousness, in paying your ticket price and laying claim to your soft, high-backed stadium seat with the fold-up arm rests and built-in cup holders, what are you hoping for when attending a movie such as this? Come on people, don’t go getting all quiet on me now. You want to feel good. That’s it. Nothing more and nothing less. Well, guess what… that’s what director Mark Waters (Just Like heaven) has accomplished with ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past’ and I applaud him in achieving that relatively difficult task in a genre that I find very rarely satisfies those very basic but important expectations from this kind of movie.

A “good” romantic comedy should make you laugh, make you care about the characters, make you think about the good things in life and heck, maybe even come close to almost maybe thinking about cutting loose a tear or two once or twice… ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past’ does this not with flashy creativity or stellar writing, but simply with the tried and true formula of making an entertaining movie without insulting the audience with ridiculously dumbed down content. This movie remains real enough while developing enough of that crucial fantasy element that makes a good romantic comedy worth your time.

McConaughey may never win an Oscar, but I’ve got to hand it to him… he has this genre cracked and never fails to deliver on that same steady level of expectations we have of him. Jennifer Garner does a great job of being beautiful but not overly glamorous and she managed to give a very real performance that isn’t forced or cheesy or anything but purely genuine. To a great extent, the old farts really steal the show in ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past’. Robert Forster plays Sarge, the father of the bride who obsessively goes on about the Korean War and offers a welcome bit of comic relief. Oh yeah, and you can’t help but enjoy his Al Pacino impersonation… “Hoo-Ah!”

Michael Douglas is a blast, playing the role of Connor’s late Uncle Wayne and mentor in life. Douglas channels one part Hugh Hefner and one part Jack Nicholson in his portrayal of the the updated Marley’s Ghost that returns to forewarn Connor (aka Scrooge) of what he is about to endure. Breckin Meyer plays Connor’s about-to-be-wed kid brother Paul and Anne Archer is absolutely charming in her small but wonderful role as Paul’s mother-in-law-to-be, Vonda Volkom. Despite your preconceptions of this movie and your potential predispositions to the genre in general, I dare you to watch this movie with an open heart and a desire to feel good and then still walk away disappointed… I dare you!

[Overall: 3.75 stars out of 5]