Review: The Dilemma

It’s only the middle of January and already we have a winner for the most ironically self-reflecting title of the year. Like its protagonist, The Dilemma is in quite a pickle itself: it wants to be three different movies but can’t quite figure out which route to choose, leading to an inevitable implosion. The only difference is that it’s quite clear why Ronny (Vince Vaughn) has trouble telling best-bud and business partner Nick (Kevin James) that his wife is cheating on him; the movie’s external confusion is far more perplexing.

The first thing one notices about The Dilemma is that it is not the predictable Vince Vaughn/Kevin James buddy comedy that was advertised. That film rears its head later on, but it isn’t what director Ron Howard (yes, you read that right) and writer Allan Loeb open with. Instead, the first act feels more like that of a classic melodrama: we meet Ronny and Nick as they enjoy a double-date with girlfriend Beth and wife Geneva (Jennifer Conelly and Winona Ryder), respectively, discussing relationships. The group is clearly inseparable — especially the guys, who are working together to engineer and sell the first electric muscle-car. Also in the mix is Ronny’s decision (or lack thereof) to propose to Beth, rounding out the ooey-gooey setup.

What’s so uncommon about all that, as sounds pretty typical of a contemporary romantic-comedy? — you might ask. After all, studios have increasingly sought to please both sexes with blends of guy humor and chick drama. The difference here is that humor isn’t really present at all. Aside from a few bro-isms as Ronny and Nick pitch their car concept to Detroit execs (including the over-publicized “gay” joke from the trailer), Howard and company go for a pretty straight-laced execution.

Unexpected as it is, the film’s serious style could have worked out just fine, but the problem is that the characters and the performances only have the depth of the expected light-hearted comedy. The result is a film that falls flat from the get-go, because there’s nothing interesting to craft the drama from. It almost seems as though scribe Loeb consciously realized this toward the end of the first act and then began lathering on comedic elements to compensate. The film begins to feel like a comedy during the scene in which the title dilemma is realized. Ronny just so happens to observe Geneva cheating in a botanical garden that he’s scouting for his proposal, causing him to spy from behind poisonous flowers that induce gag-friendly facial swelling. No, that isn’t to say the jokes are actually funny, but rather more suited to the one-dimensional material, more comfortable.

As Ronny struggles over to how tell Nick that Geneva is cheating, The Dilemma takes on a third genre: the spy procedural. He stalks her, eventually with a wide-lens camera that would be the envy of most paparazzi. And it doesn’t stop there: after Ronny confronts Geneva about the situation and she makes the excuse that Nick has been seeking out his own extramarital satisfaction at a massage parlor, he begins following Nick as well. Interestingly, these sequences are probably the most consistently engaging element of the film, thanks to Howard’s seasoned ability to craft suspense and the script’s use of them in showing Ronny’s internal paranoia and doubts about his own commitment to Beth (the sole instance of actual character-building).

Eventually, the movie becomes such a hodgepodge of styles that I simply resigned from trying to get into it and marveled at its oddness. After all, its most schizophrenic passage–Ronny breaking into the apartment of Geneva’s lover, who turns out to be an oxycontin-popping Channing Tatum–is the most entertaining one. There isn’t anything viewers have never seen before in The Dilemma, but they certainly haven’t seen the elements presented in this way. Given how ramshackle the screenplay is, it’s something of a marvel that this director and these stars signed up to make it given their pedigree. (OK, yeah, I resent lumping Kevin James in with the others when using the word “pedigree” — forgive me.) Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite qualify for the “interesting failures” department because, aside from the few aforementioned standout segments, it isn’t all that interesting. Peculiar as it is, The Dilemma is just as mediocre and unwatchable as the average January studio dump-job.

* * *

The Dilemma (2011, USA). Produced by William M. Connor, Brian Grazer, Todd Hallowell, Kristin Lowe, Kathleen McGill, Kim Roth, Victoria Vaugn, Vince Vaughn, and Louisa Velis. Directed by Ron Howard. Written for the screen by Allan Loeb. Starring Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Winona Ryder, Jennifer Connelly, Channing Tatum, and Queen Latifah. Distributed by Universal Pictures. Rated PG-13, with a running time of 115 minutes.