Critics love to debate what film is the worst of all time. Truly bad films have many qualities but perhaps a make-or-break moment is when it takes actors that are able to be good even in bad films and make you cringe for their careers. In The Dilemma, director Ron Howard manages to do the impossible: he made me HATE Jennifer Connelly and Connelly is THE ONLY THING that makes seeing this film tolerable. What happened?? On paper the projects seems, at least, plausible.
Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, and Winona Ryder have done comedies and are CAPABLE of being funny but here an ostensive comedy is not just not funny but downright boring, annoying, and offensive in not even trying to be offensive. The major controvesy over The Dilemma was its gay jokes - which are so unbelievably tame that one wonders what the controversy is. The plot of course makes no logical sense or HUMAN logical sense anyway. The Dilemma is presumably about a ... dilemma? And the dilemma is (apparently) whether Ronny should tell his genius engineer/buddy Nick that Ryder is cheating on him.
How is this a dilemma ...?? Presumably, the dilemma might inhere in that this is a drama AND comedy. Unfortunately, the film is pretty vacuous at both ends. In terms of comedy - there is none. But the drama is hard to locate to - as is the plot. Entire threads and even characters (Queen Latifah) simply come and go. Nothing seems to cohere and set pieces and action scenes go on and on and on and the ostensive punchlines - telegraphed in ridiculously explicit mannerisms - are so over-the-top it seems the film is aimed at a teen audience. But that can't be right since the "humor" (such as it is) is abut relationships, committment, and so on. Part of the dilemma that The Dilemma has is perhaps Howard's decision to call his film a dilemma and making people GUESS in a COMEDY what is THE FUCKING DILEMMA ALREADY!??!
I seriously can't still figure out what that dilemma is and when calling your film a dilemma that REALLY does need explaining upfront. Vince Vaughn is playing (again) ... an annoying version of Vince Vaughn ... this WAS funny but having seen that the film merely showcases Vaughn being Vaughn being Vaughn. And even if that were funny, the drama is (supposed to be?? I'm seriously guessing) supposed to play off our sympathy for the characters. But nothing in the story makes one sympathetic to anyone but Beth (Connelly). The problem is the elements and logic never add up. If Beth is even half as intelligent as Connelly why would Beth want Ron?? Vaughn may be many attractive features but attractive to intellectual-sexy women like Connelly he is not. And Kevin James, alas, keeps relying on his fat to be funny. In short, eveyone seems to be phoning in their performances and expecting them to mean something. But anyone trying to understand the various plot twists is going to be disappointed. Mathematical puzzles have less paradoxes per second than this film. But it's sad to say the film is so bad and awful and stupid and meaningless and pointless, it is actually bearable as a case study of a Hollywood movie gone horribly wrong. Were there different scripts? Better scenes cut out??? Other actors considered?
The Dilemma is that rare critical treat: a film so fucking stupid its being there is a better joke than any joke IN the movie. Well, worth seeing as a disaster flick and a truly promising project gone terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly ... wrong. And this NOT an exageration. (HONESTLY: I actually want to know WHAT IS THE DILEMMA THE DILEMMA IS ABOUT?)
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