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The Dilemma (12A)


The critical consensus

Hit-and-miss for Howard. The tone flits, sometimes uncomfortably, from Vaughn-fuelled laugh-fest to relationship drama, but it's a winner compared to many of the clunkly comedies out there.

***(*)(*)Genevieve Harrison, Empire Online, 18/01/2011

Pious, intense and ofter hectoringly implausible, the movie runs on empty while making loud "vroom-vroom" sounds.

**(*)(*)(*)Nigel Andrews, Financial Times, 19/01/2011

Director Ron Howard's attempt at a black comedy drama is merely cynical and depressing.

**(*)(*)(*)Daily Record, 21/01/2011

Painfully dragged out, with one bloated scene after another.

Paul Greenwood, Evening Times, 20/01/2011

The unknowability of other peoples' relationships is a decent jump-off for grown-up comedy, but this collapses into comic mayhem, falling-out-of-trees slapstick, snore-bore misunderstandings and a sizeable distance between laughs.

**(*)(*)(*)Cath Clarke, The Guardian, 20/01/2011

Hamstring by its own dilemma – whether to make us laugh or cry – and guilty of squandering a decent cast, Howard’s film is as heavy-going as a messy divorce.

**(*)(*)(*)Matthew Leyland, Total Film, 20/01/2011

In the end it belly flops into a weird nothingness.

**(*)(*)(*)Alison Rowat, The Herald, 20/01/2011

A comedy without laughs, and a drama without tension.

*(*)(*)(*)(*)Anthony Quinn, The Independent, 21/01/2011

The end result is a humourless mess.

**(*)(*)(*)Alistair Harkness, The Scotsman, 22/01/2011

Nothing’s funny. Nothing’s real.

**(*)(*)(*)Tim Robey, The Telegraph, 20/01/2011

Rather less fun than a badly executed coronary bypass.

Philip French, The Observer, 23/01/2011

Where and when?

General release. Check local listings for show times.

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