The Dilemma

The Dilemma, a 2011 film by Ron Howard, is a dilemma unto itself. It would seem to be packaged as a comedy, but it ends up being a surprisingly nasty, dark-hearted film about honesty and the meaning of friendship, although it's attitudes about those things are somewhat twisted.

Vince Vaughn and Kevin James are bosom buddies who met in college. They now own a business making automobile engines--they have an idea to make an electric car motor that sounds like a gas engine, a strange kind of retro-engineering. But that's just background. James is married to Winona Ryder, and while at a botanical garden Vaughn sees her canoodling with another man (Channing Tatum, in full male bimbo mode). The rest of the film is Vaughn struggling with how to tell James the awful truth, bearing in mind that they have a big presentation with Chrysler coming up.

The film's overall tone is annoyance. It opens with the four main characters (Jennifer Connelly is Vaughn's patient fiancee) in a restaurant talking about whether one person can really know another. These kind of people and situations exist only in beer commercials, and the notion is doubled down when they all go to a hockey game wearing Black Hawk jerseys (it's a Vince Vaughn movie, so naturally it's set in Chicago).

The film, which talks about honesty, is dishonest in many ways, the most being that Vaughn does not tell Connelly what he knows, thus creating tension between them because she thinks he's gambling again (he's a recovering addict). The explanation for this subterfuge is never satisfactorily explained, mainly because Vaughn does what he does, including making a completely inappropriate toast at Connelly's parents' anniversary party, because the script demands it. In fact, Vaughn does so many stupid things that the central question of the film--would you tell your best friend that his wife is cheating on him? becomes lost in a jumble of inane slapstick.

The film is very hard on Ryder. She is portrayed as a villain--when Vaughn confronts her she responds with blackmail--and lets James off easy (he makes weekly visits to a massage parlor). She's a good enough actress to make her character interesting, the only such character in the film. Connelly is saintly--if I were here I would have kicked Vaughn to the curb the minute he suggested her mother might have made eyes at the pool boy.

The Dilemma is just unpleasant all around.