The Dilemma, ironically enough, is faced with quite a dilemma of its own. Much like a previous Vince Vaughn film, The Break-Up, the film attempts a mixture of comedy and drama. When a comedy isn’t trying very hard and isn’t silly enough to be “stupid,” I fear it becomes a de facto drama. The Dilemma, is true to its story and, to its credit, isn’t a series of events strung together for comic effect, but as a result it becomes a drama with a few laughs. Director Ron Howard has a likable cast who wouldn’t be out of place in a pure comedy, but his film has somewhat smarter aspirations that aren’t achieved despite, and perhaps because, mixing several emotional tones.
Vaughn stars as Ronny Valentine, a recovering gambler who has been clean for a year. He runs a small Chicago based engineering firm with his BFF, Nick Brannen (Kevin James). Nick is the Woz to Ronny’s Steve Jobs. Ronny is dating but has yet to pop the question to Beth (Jennifer Connelly); Nick is married to Geneva (Winona Ryder), whom Ronny discovers is sleeping with Zip (Channing Tatum)– who seems to have no profession but has a great apartment, body and body ink – who could easily party with Rush Limbaugh, as they are both fans of OxyContin.
The guilt of discovering Geneva’s affair leads to spying on her and other obsessive antics. The behavior leads to suspicions that he’s gambling again. The film doesn’t offer very much sympathy for Nick and Geneva besides the normal reasons people cheat on each other. The dilemma of the title is strictly internal for Ronny.
At this junction the film becomes a dark character study. Screenwriter Allan Loeb specializes in films about characters with addictions and obsessions, from Things We Lost in the Fire, 21, The Switch and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Following an exact three-act structure as per Screenwriting 101, the script may have been imagined as a drama and re-purposed as a comedy by the studio head. They certainly were able to cut a trailer and pull out sound bites for marketing that give the appearance of a conventional comedy. It’s not this bait-and-switch I’m bothered by so much as it’s inability achieve a dramatic truth that the self-righteous Ronny attempts to find from the film’s opening scene. The two couples sit at a riverfront restaurant discussing if you could “ever really know someone.” Of course, everyone has secrets in their past, except the criminally-underdeveloped Beth (Connelly) and the sassy tell-it-like-it-is Chrysler executive/project manager Susan Warner, played by a sadly under-used Queen Latifah, who is always a pleasure to see on screen.
With that said, I assume there was a certain amount of improvisation the more comically inclined actors were permitted to experiment with. Perhaps a more liberating approach director Ron Howard could have considered is the style that British master filmmaker Mike Leigh employs: starting with a rough outline of a plot and individual scenes, Leigh allows his actors the emotional latitude to run free. His latest, Another Year, currently in theaters, flawlessly balances a great deal of humor and sadness, often simultaneously.
The Dilemma artificially injects humor through the presence of two comic actors. Ron Howard’s direction seems to want to have it both ways: the script is underdeveloped and misshapen, it could either skew closer to farce or melodrama, but much like Ronny it’s unsure how to handle this dilemma.
