With the title Ghosts of Christmas Past, you would think it would be a take on The Christmas Carol. While this one is similar to Boyfriends of Christmas Past from earlier this movie season, it is not a new take on the Dickens classic.
Ellie (Annie Clark) has a bad habit of ghosting the men she meets on dating apps. When she talks to a fortune teller at the company holiday party, Ellie is told that she must make amends with the men she ghosted before Christmas Day or she will be doomed to never find true love. With the help of her co-worker, Charlie (Dan Jeannotte), Ellie tries to track down the long list of men before time runs out!
After watching so many Christmas movies, I have learned not to trust the titles. Someone somewhere thinks they are being punny but they aren’t. Instead of being about The Ghost of Christmas Past, which is what everyone will think, this is simply about a woman who stops answering messages from men for no reason. It’s not like the men were being creepy or overstepped their bounds. Those would be perfectly valid reasons to abruptly end a conversation. No, she stopped messaging because she didn’t like a guy’s side part or he thought he was obsessed with his mother when he brought her up in conversation once. Ellie definitely has some issues and no one will talk to her about them.
In addition to apologizing to these men, Ellie and Charlie must also make a Christmas-themed video game at the last minute. I understand that writers want to have this big Christmas deadline for characters so there will be some sort of pressure on them to get something finished. However, no one makes a video game in a few weeks. Maybe this would be a game for next season but definitely not this year. So I don’t know why they would have a big Christmas deadline on this. It’s just an excuse to throw Ellie and Charlie together. Especially since we barely see them working on the game.
Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t terrible but it’s not good either. Almost all of the men are completely fine with Ellie ghosting them. I think there’s only two men that bore any sort of ill will toward her. I get it, it’s a Christmas movie so they aren’t going to have the men cursing her out or calling her names. However, this is Lifetime. This is the channel that puts out the scandalous movies about women being stalked and murdered. Throw in a few men that call her a raging bitch. It’s OK.
Should you watch it? I’m not going to give it a raving recommendation but I don’t really see any reason not to watch it. There isn’t a lot that goes on, which could make it boring for you, and the ending is rather predictable. But if you have nothing else to watch, this would suffice.