Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

You can be forgiven if you are one of the few out there this weekend who chose Ghosts of Girlfriends Past over the far more tantalizing Wolverine. Perhaps you remember the enjoyable Matthew McConaughey, the guy who used his southern drawl to sleazy perfection in movies like Dazed and Confused and Tropic Thunder. Chances are, if you’re seeing this movie, you’ve still holding out hope for McConaughey to use those ruffled curls and Hollywood dimples to play a truly appealing romantic lead, something that’s alluded him in trope like Failure to Launch and The Wedding Planner.

I also have been waiting for McConaughey to find that great role that makes use of that drawl, those dimples, that quality he has that just makes you think there’s no guy you’d rather go on a road trip with. But, ladies, this ain’t it.

In Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, McConaughey plays Connor Mead, a man so thoroughly self-absorbed and sexually predatory, he breaks up with the women he’s dating on a threeway video conference call. No use for fidelity, or even companionship, Connor is crude and dismissive to all the people he encounters, from his assistant Melanie, to his longtime friend Jenny, to his brother Paul. (Paul is played by Breckin Meyer, a casting choice that can only be explained if money passed between the movie’s casting director and Meyer’s agent.) On the evening of his brother’s wedding, Connor falls asleep and is greeted by three separate ghosts, who show him his past, present, and future. The result of these visits are meant to force Connor to face his stunted adolescence and utter assholishness, or, what the movie calls, his “feelings”.

Poor Jennifer Garner, who really deserves a role that employs the full use of the emotional dexterity she displayed in Juno, is stuck playing Jenny Perotti, the woman who fell for Connor as a child and still pines for him. The trouble is, no woman as smart and down to earth as Jenny appears would actually give Connor a second thought. When she does give him a second thought, and a third and a fourth, Jenny becomes just another one of the long-suffering people in Connor’s life. And, in turn, we in the audience become more long-suffering moviegoers waiting for Matthew McConaughey to make a romantic comedy worth our time and energy.

There are some funny moments; Emma Stone as Ghost of Girlfriends Past Allison Vandermeesh gets a nice line involving a movie montage and the song “Time after Time” and Noureen DeWolf‘s voice as Connor’s assistant is wonderfully sarcastic. But, in a movie whose audience is primarily female, is it too much to ask for a male character who can actually match these women in likeability and charm?

Is it?