The Dilemma
A common formula in Ron Howard’s comedies is how serious issues are right below the surface, such as the media invasion of privacy in “edTV”; the professional obsession that gets in the way of personal responsibilities in “The Paper”; the need to loosen up in a world that gets crazy in “Night Shift”; and the culture clash that gets in the way of real-life difficulties in “Gung Ho.” Ron Howard’s “The Dilemma” follows that trend, albeit less successfully, by looking at deeper issues of trust when Ronny (Vince Vaughn) sees Geneva (Winona Ryder), the wife of his best friend and business partner, Nick (Kevin James), cheating with a tattooed youngin’ named Zip (Channing Tatum). What follows is a 112-minute exercise in watching Ronny dealing with how to break this to Nick while they are knee-deep into a big work project, which puts a big strain not only on his friendship with Nick but his relationship with Beth (Jennifer Connelly). The problem with the film is how most attempts at comedy fall flat and Allan Loeb’s script is far more successful as a serious film with funny moments. The cast does a pretty good job with this material, but Howard seems unsure of how to handle this film at times from a tonal standpoint, which is hard to imagine from a long-time fan of his. Still, Howard knows what’s important in this film, and even when Loeb’s script falls short as comedy, Howard and his cast make us care about what these characters are going through– that part of “The Dilemma” makes it easy to overlook the fact that it isn’t as funny as it wants to be.
