Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past (DVD)

The story A Christmas Carol has always seemed somewhat flawed to me. Scrooge is, after all, an old man when the story opens, his life already ruined by his miserable penny pinching nature. Wouldn’t the four ghosts have been better advised to visit him 30 or 40 years before?

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past does at least get round this problem:  Matthew McConaughey’s ‘Scrooge’ is still in his 30s. Yet this is no Christmas Carol. Indeed, despite lots of snow on the ground, it’s not even set at Christmas. McConaughey is Connor Mead, a professional photographer who specialises in taking pictures of – and ultimately bedding – lingerie models. Led astray in his teens by the baleful influence of his Hugh Hefner-like Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas, sending up his ‘sex addict’ image), Connor is astonished to be visited by the ghost of his recently deceased mentor while attending his younger brother’s wedding rehearsal.

Explaining that he regrets his life of hedonistic debauchery, Wayne warns that Connor will be visited by three more spirits during the night ahead, who will show him the error of his promiscuous ways and perhaps provide him with an opportunity to redeem himself in the eyes of his childhood sweetheart Jenny (Garner).

There are a few problems here, notably Connor’s pulling technique. While the Roger Dodger type flashbacks to Douglas’s old stud tutoring his young charge in the ways of womankind are amusing enough, as an adult Connor rarely comes across as anything other than sleazy and desperate. Whatever you think of McConaughey, it’s hard to imagine girls falling for him in droves if he used the methods he deploys here. Worse still, in the films they actually do. Enough of the girls are portrayed as either ultra-gullible or to be as bad as Connor is, that’s it’s vaguely offensive.

On the plus side, the sequences with the ghosts are quite fun, although this does rather drum home how dull the wedding rehearsal sequences often are. Douglas is also great as the lecherous phantom and Robert Forster has fun as the Korean War obsessed father of the bride. But the attempts to inject a note of slapstick (a woeful wedding cake mishap and car chase sequence) seem to have been written with someone other than McConaughey in mind.

Ultimately, Connor comes across as such a loathsome creep it’s impossible to care what happens to him. In a romantic comedy, this is fatal. The disc also includes a few alternate scenes, but they add little and with the film being less than successful, it’s unlikely you’ll care.

Overall Verdict: Not all bad, but for a decent version of a Christmas Carol, you’re still better off seeing the one with the Muppets and Michael Caine.

Special Features:
Trailer
Extra Scenes: 
   Original Opening
   Exiting the Studio
   The Bridesmaids’ Toast
Uncle Wayne Gives Advice – Extended Scenes

Reviewer: Chris Hallam