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    Mr. Romantic Comedy

    Posted Tuesday, February 03, 2009 9:36 AM | By Willa Paskin
    The trailer for Matthew McConaughey's forthcoming Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (think Scrooge for an unrepentant womanizer) has arrived on the Internet and, inevitably, it looks mediocre (Jezebel slagged on it over the weekend). How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days notwithstanding, McConaughey has never appeared in a decent rom-com, and, obviously, not for lack of trying. He's the genre's current go-to guy and demonstrates how far these once mighty films have fallen. A job previously done by Cary Grant is now being done by a dude whose all time best line reading involves the phrase "I get older, [high school girls] stay the same age." No fair. Can I at least get a Hugh Grant or a Ryan Reynolds over here?

    The underlying problem with the McConaughey persona is that he's just not a catch, unless it's your life dream to stay buff by playing bongos and running on the beach all day. He brings his laid back, surfer vibe to all his roles, meaning his characters have a nice mellow charm, a lazy sex appeal and no ambition or native intelligence whatsoever. He is so obviously not a guy worth fighting with, let alone over, for an hour and a half—splitting a pot brownie and having a skinny dip sounds much more his speed.

    Yet, on a strictly human level, I can't help but admire him: I think maybe he knows the secret to true contentment. Unlike most actors, who spend their extremely fortunate lives constantly striving, seemingly as burdened with the stress of professional success as the rest of us non-Adonis, non-millionaires, McConaughey appears to be legitimately satisfied with his extraordinary luck and to have fully embraced his professional mediocrity (only his frequent co-star Kate Hudson seems as willful or happy a hack). He's the guy who wrapped a Steven Spielberg movie (Amistad) and decided that caliber of film just wasn't for him, his spot in the canon be damned. I don't dig his movies, but maybe he wants to hang out and teach me to be Zen sometime?
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