Thursday, March 24, 2011

My Last Five Girlfriends

My Last Five Girlfriends reminded me of nothing so much as Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  There are differences to be sure.  Scott Pilgrim was about a man facing his girlfriend’s exes; MLFG, rather, concerned a man coming to trips with his own exes.  Scott Pilgrim made heavy use of metaphor to make its point, whereas MLFG, as narrated by its central character, more directly analyzes the subtle traps relationships fall into.  Yet both make use of paranormal interludes.

[Spoilers follow]

Here, for instance is Duncan explaining how fate was surely responsible for putting him together with GF #1:

My Last Five Girlfriends–Heavenly Dating

The joke is, of course, that Duncan’s statistics here are pretty weak.  As it happens, GF #1 had insufficient closure with her own ex boyfriend.

With GF #2 (Jane March in a rare movie appearance), Duncan tries too hard to mold himself into somebody that would please a way too mercurial woman.

And on it goes, each relationship falling to different stresses and incompatibilities.

Of course, no relationship post of mine would be complete without an obligatory mention that Duncan’s sex-and-shackup approach to dating is highly likely to lead to a string of bad outcomes.  I’m not sure if the movie itself is fully aware of this.  It does bring up the interesting question as to whether “relationship experience”, while undoubtedly vital to success in attracting women (as I learned myself by not having it), is much conducive to making the relationships work in the long run.

But on other issues, the movie shows a surprising degree of perspicacity.  Here, for instance, it explains the rules of sulking at the downside of GF #5:

My Last Five Girlfriends–Successful Sulking

Well played.

I enjoyed this movie more than Scott Pilgrim, whose extended martial arts scenes I found tedious.  But they nonetheless should be companion pieces, the first dealing with one’s partner’s relationship history, and the second dealing with one’s own.

5 comments:

Elusive Wapiti said...

You sure do watch a whole lotta movies out there. Not much else better to do?

Anonymous said...

You sure do watch a whole lotta movies out there.

I was going to say this like five posts ago.

"My Last Five Girlfriends" - this is a movie? And here I thought we were going to get a juicy account of Phi's actual last five girlfriends...

Dr. Φ said...

There is NOT much to do out here, and very little social space to do it, and very little personal energy to do it with. But the movies are plentiful and easy to access.

I've averaged around one movie an evening, or a couple of TV episodes. But the truth is that I've about exhausted all the entertainment I would actually sit through.

But I do have a post about my own relationship history in the queue. Stay tuned . . .

Anonymous said...

Keep the reviews coming. I wouldn't have seen 500 Days of Summer but for your recommend and I will probably watch this one, too.

Out of curiosity, what made this movie watchable but A Complete History of My Sexual Failures otherwise?

Dr. Φ said...

ML5Gs was fun, usually lighthearted, and educational in it's way. ACHoMSFs was dull. It was just this guy on the phone being called a loser and a creep. Maybe it got better at some point. Did you watch it all the way through?