Review of The Dilemma (2011) by Shiira — 25 Jan 2011

Throughout the second phase of his career, the one which started with 1977's "Grand Theft Auto", this former child star, hardly what you would call a critics' darling, has consistently assuaged the mainstream audience's fear of adventure with sturdy, but ultimately, disposable films that never go, you know, there; the proverbial there, the dark place where many provincial-minded moviegoers are afraid to go.

This filmmaker, for better or worse, is Middle America's Orson Welles. His most successful outing, the Academy Award-winning "A Beautiful Mind", well-received for its adeptness at showing the inner-workings of John Nash's compromised world, disappointingly settles for cheap sentiment during the final reel(for starters, the pen scene), and ends up making the schizophrenic game theorist entirely too sympathetic, by half.

Love him or loathe him, that's the filmmaker's modus operandi: placate the audience, placate 'em good, which is why his latest effort, "The Dilemma", in many ways, represents a radical departure for this pathological crowd-pleaser, who as a result of his gallivanting into uncharted territory, may shock his core audience by showing off a previously incognito dark side.

Nobody's going to confuse this former child star with a misanthrope like Lars Von Trier, but his foray into pessimism as a filmic tool is a new development in the ol' repertoire that deserves our encouragement, not scorn.

Case and point: the off-kilter toast that Ronnie(Vince Vaughn) gives at his girlfriend's parent's anniversary party, albeit not possessing the same caliber of black humor as the damning speech given by a sexually-abused son to his depraved stepfather in Thomas Vinterberg's "Festen", does take you aback, does make you hold your breath a little, as the crazed entrepreneur, vexed over the infidelity perpetuated by Geneva(Winona Ryder), his best friend's wife, expounds upon the concept of honesty, and keeps both audiences(us and the partygoers) on pins and needles, as he speculates over other people's sex lives with his vitriol-fueled stand-up patter.

When you consider that our answer to the Dogme movement(which includes the 1998 Vinterberg film, also known as "The Celebration") was Alan Cummings' "The Anniversary Party", maybe "The Dilemma", through its seeming allusion to more cineaste-approved fare, is the squarest of all square filmmaker's concession that his proficient movies are indeed maddeningly middle-of-the-road.

"The Dilemma" is virgin territory for this talented hack; it's, at times, genuinely edgy. In its own oblique way, this Dogme-light comedy is a very political film; it's anti-bromance. Unlike the Judd Apatow-inspired "I Love You, Man", the close bond between Ronnie and Nick(Kevin James), inventors of a new technology that masculinizes the electric car, has none of the coyness surrounding their friendship that runs through "Superbad" and "Pineapple Express".

When we learn that Ronnie had sex with Geneva(at Ball State, wink wink, nudge nudge), their sexual history, as a result, has a transformative effect on previous scenes, especially the one at the botanical garden, because now it's a former lover, and not just the best friend of the husband whom Geneva is cuckolding, who watches a whole lot of sinning going on between the secret lovers, in the thick of the rare fauna and flora.

The contact that Ronnie makes with the poisonous greenery, in retrospect, no longer plays like an arbitrary occurrence; his falling down, not just a harmless bit of slapstick comedy resulting in a bad rash and urinary problems, but instead takes on the significance of a punishment, the transgression being: he covets his best friend's wife.

This game-changing revelation at the coffeehouse, which codifies Ronnie's sexual orientation, culminates with Geneva feigning a good cry and corroborating story about Ronnie's ongoing lechery, which she threatens to deploy as a preventive measure against being found out.

Her public display of female hysteria uncannily recalls the scene in Rob Reiner's "When Harry Met Sally" where Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm. This time, it's crocodile tears. The premise that women and men can't truly be friends because of each sex's biological disposition toward f*cking, is retold in "The Dilemma" under the guise of a man's fidelity toward a committed homosocial relationship with an old college buddy.

Forty-years-old and never married, Ronnie dated and dumped all of Geneva's friends because none of them were Geneva herself. For a change of pace, "The Dilemma" has a straight subtext. In "Vanilla Sky", Julie Gianni(Cameron Diaz) says, "Don't you know that when you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise whether you do or not.

" When Ronnie sees Geneva kissing that guy, his body remembers, and more importantly, he remembers.