Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Director: Mark Waters
Matthew McConaughey is a cad and a bounder in this update of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and here’s where things gets interesting.
He deliberately curdles his cuteness, a risky thing for an actor who depends on it. His loathsome Connor Mead uses his good looks to attract, use and then discard women.
He’s jousting with Jennifer Garner and bantering with Michael Douglas, but he’s ripe for comeuppance, and he’s about to get it the way Ebenezer Scrooge did.
The ending is never in doubt, yet even knowing all this, Ghosts is a pleasure to watch. No recent romcom has had such wicked fun with formula, and a lot of this is due to the script by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who also co-scripted The Hangover. For director Mark Waters, it’s a return to Mean Girls sharpness.
Most of all it’s a roll of the dice for McConaughey, who risks losing his audience by playing a character who is so hard to like.
There are no special features.
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