At a time where half of all marriages end in divorce, it’s probably fair to ask why. There
are as many answers to that question as there are divorces, and so in I Think I Love My Wife Chris Rock, himself married for more than 10 years, chooses to avoid the why and instead ask the how.
A quick disclaimer, however: Rock’s film is based on Eric Rohmer’s Chloe in the Afternoon, which I have not seen. I’m honestly not sure that it matters. Watching his update, you can almost feel the outline of the original: It was probably more earnest, rougher around the edges, and more… French.
Rock (who also co-wrote and directed) plays Richard, a man who has settled down from his hard-partying ways and married the beautiful, if safe, schoolteacher Brenda (Firefly’s Gina Torres). They have two cute kids, a gorgeous house, and just about everything you could hope for. But he’s bored. Their sex life is nonexistent, a fact that clearly grates on Richard. So, when a gorgeous woman from his past (Nikki, played by Kerry Washington) draws him into her orbit, Richard can’t help but be curious about what his life might be like if he gave into temptation.
Honestly, the plot doesn’t differ much from your average Lifetime movie about a marriage disrupted by the allure of a new romance, although Rock keeps things surprisingly chaste. Instead of focusing on the sex, he explores the emotional side of the affair. Why does Richard stray? What is the woman getting out of it? Where does the responsibility lie?
This being a Chris Rock film, these questions are posed with a smirk. Richard attends the same car show with his mistress as he does with his wife, with tellingly different results: Nikki plays amidst the sports cars, while Brenda wants to check out the latest minivans. It’s hardly a surprising juxtaposition, but Rock has enough charm and wit to make you forget the cliches.
Still, it’s awfully safe for one of the most scathing comedians to take the stage. He gets credit for taking a different angle on infidelity than most, but Rock never pushes it far enough: The characters are almost never outside of their comfort zones. For a man that once did five minutes of material on being the “dick in a glass case,†it’s all a little too safe.
