Vaughn and James Wring Some Depth Out of Their Latest Comedy
Vince Vaughn and Kevin James latest, The Dilemma, will leave with your own quandary: Is this movie really that good or am I just lying to myself? Truthfully, that’s not a terrible dilemma, and neither is this unexpectedly deep comedy about one man’s tortured attempt to keep a secret that could ruin much more than a friendship.
Vaughn and James play longtime friends and business partners, Ronny and Nick, on the verge of their big breaks, romantically and professionally. As the two work on an electric engine with bite for Chrysler that could change their business fortunes, Ronny, inspired by Nick’s wedded bliss with wife Geneva (Winona Ryder), is gearing up to propose to girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Connelly). Complications arise when Ronny catches Geneva playing cougar to Channing Tatum’s tattooed bad boy, Zip. Hi-jinks and heartbreak ensue as Ronny struggles with telling Nick the devastating truth and risking the Chrysler deal.
Director Ron Howard—or at least Universal’s marketing department—pulled a nifty bait and switch with The Dilemma. What was clearly marketed as another Vaughn frat buddy vehicle, with James stepping in for Owen Wilson, is actually a mildly heart-wrenching, and occasionally riotous, study of the psychological, and physical, stress associated with keeping secrets that threaten the delicate nature of relationships, platonic and romantic.
Vaughn truly carries the film, portraying a man besieged by a secret he doesn’t want to keep. He still delivers his trademark snide insults—as well as a punishing amount of physical comedy when he tousles with Tatum in the film’s funniest, yet oddly violent scene—but the majority of his performance is balancing the jokes with a little more pathos than expected. While Vaughn hits most of the dramatic notes, particularly when showing exasperation over his duplicity, he doesn’t dig as deep as he could, often bailing for a joke instead of showing too much genuine agony.
With Vaughn carrying the comedic and dramatic load, James is left to play straight man and victim. Admittedly, it’s strange to see James in a role devoid of pratfalls, but he plays Nick with an equal measure of naivete and anxiousness, as a man beset by career anxiety while wholly unaware of his wife’s duplicity. James lets Nick’s good-natured gullibility sink in so deep that audiences will still feel a bit blindsided at the denouement, despite knowing exactly what’s coming. Winona Ryder takes another turn as a deplorable character playing Nick’s philandering wife without complexity until the final frames. Connelly plays a compassionate counterpoint to Ryder’s spiteful shrew with a low-key turn as Vaughn’s supportive girlfriend. Connelly may not have much to do, but at least she gives the role a dignity that eludes most contemporary female comedic leads.
Ron Howard does a fine job of pushing these actors just beyond their comfort zones—some much more than others—giving them characters with a little dirt on them who are constantly forced to suppress their personal and professional secrets. The understated confrontations, and subsequent confessions, between Vaughn and Connelly alone give the Dilemma more depth than it deserves.
Despite surprising depth and strong performances, there are notable missteps particularly with supporting actors who are grossly underused—Queen Latifah and Tatum in particular—the lack of comedic material for James, and the wall-banging reluctance of the characters to just fess up, already! Even worse is the amount of jokes that face plant from launch. The audience sat without so much as chuckling for most of the film’s two hours, largely due to a stream of tired Vince Vaughn jokes buried under the weight of the drama. Flat jokes and missed opportunities aside, the Dilemma is a real surprise, especially with its dreaded January release date, offering more emotion than laughs and showing viewers something they haven’t seen from Vaughn since his turn in The Break-Up: range.
