Jennifer Connelly: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

2. Beth - The Dilemma (2011)

In my article about Robert Redford last week, I spoke about the working relationships that actors and directors form which leads them to regularly work together. But as Redford's career will testify, working with the same person again and again is not a guarantee of consistent quality; compare Three Days of the Condor with Out of Africa, both helmed by Sydney Pollack. Connelly found this out to her cost in 2011, when she reunited with Ron Howard for The Dilemma. The Dilemma follows best friends Ronny (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Kevin James), who begin the film by winning a contract with Dodge to build an eco-friendly car. While planning on how to propose to his girlfriend Beth (Connelly), Ronny spots Nick's wife Geneva (Winona Ryder) kissing another man (Channing Tatum). Ronny is torn between telling his friend the truth or keeping it a secret for the sake of their friendship, and things slowly escalate out of control. The Dilemma is a bad film which is confronted by a dilemma of its own: it doesn't know whether to be a light-hearted slapstick comedy in the vein of Vaughn and James' earlier work, or a darker vehicle about infidelity and the frustrations of marriage. Connelly is boring for the most part, having much less presence than the histrionic Ryder and struggling to hold her own against Vaughn. It's a bland, empty performance which has none of the spark of her previous work with Howard.