Girlfriends of Christmas Past

It's your usual christmas movie with an event planning lead and overly-done lines. I was quite taken aback, however, when the love interest began blaming all of women for the negative things that some men have done. I'll take cheesy but I won't take misogyny (or rampant stalking, B&E, and poisoning). This is one of the first movies I've stopped partway through and given up on.

Three women scorned set out to get revenge on their ex. They perceived he cheated on them and want to ruin his current relationship and save his latest flame. Whether or not he cheated is a running theme of the movie. The movie goes for low laughs when it could have gone high. All in all not worth the space on the shelf. This one should have not gotten the green light.

The movie was funny and it had some cute moments, so, overall, the movie was entertaining. Sure, it is predictable and a bit less heavy on the christmas mood, but it was okay.

Early in the movie my wife and I were aghast at the actions of the three women who had been burned by the same guy and briefly wondered why the lead woman refused to take her partner Ty's advice to forget and move on. Then it became clear. This was strictly a comedy. We couldn't take seriously what any of the three exes did or said.

From that point on, we found the movie actually pretty funny; perhaps not as funny as a Marx Brothers movie, or the three stooges, but definitely funny, right down to a little slapstick. Everyone around the girls plays it straight, but just like the Marx brothers, they play it all for laughs. This is actually very good escapist fare, all things considered. But don't compare it to the RomComs like Hallmark and others turn out. I think it succeeds quite well as a comedy so we rated it accordingly.

Well, not that the two movies are tied together, but I enjoyed the 2021 "Boyfriends of Christmas Past", and then I stumbled upon the 2016 movie "Girlfriends of Christmas Past" and of course I opted to watch that one as well.

But writer and director Jake Helgren just didn't manage to churn out a movie that provided me with much of any entertainment or enjoyment here. In fact, the movie was totally devoid of comedy that made me laugh. So sitting through an hour and a half of half-baked comedy that didn't even make me smile was sort of a drag.

The storyline told in "Girlfriends of Christmas Past" fell short of entertaining me, yet I managed to sit through the ordeal to the bitter end, hoping all along that the movie would pick up and become better. But that just never happened.

I only recognized John Brotherton in this movie, though it is not someone I am familiar with. But I will say that they definitely had managed to get together a good enough ensemble of actors and actresses to partake in the movie. Just a real shame that they had virtually nothing to work with in terms of a proper script or characters that you could relate to or even take a liking to.

This 2016 movie is not one I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on. Some of us suffered through this ordeal so you don't have to.

My rating of "Girlfriends of Christmas Past" lands on a very generous two out of ten stars.