I Think I Love My Wife
Here’s the insight into adult relationships that Chris Rock provides in “I Think I Love My Wife”: Marriage is hell, infidelity is worse. Given those choices, I’d take Door Number Three, but Rock envisions no escape. Since he co-wrote, directed and stars in the movie, listen to his own words, in the guise of a New York investment banker named Richard Cooper. “Life is long,” Richard says. “You’re probably not going to get hit by a bus. And you’re going to have to live with the choices you make for the next 50 years.” This dour attitude pervades “I Think I Love My Wife.” Aside from the occasional standup-worthy one-liner, Rock is a comedian with serious things on his mind but little to say about them. His take on marriage is superficial and clichéd. Worse, he makes Richard’s wife, played by Gina Torres, a clueless cipher. He never dramatizes her lack of fulfillment; she seems blithely happy with their months-long sexual drought. And when he takes her to an auto show to live out a harmless sports-car fantasy, she shows him a minivan. It’s no wonder, then, that Richard is tempted when Nikki Tru, a buddy’s ex-girlfriend played by Kerry Washington in full vamp mode, starts showing up at his office. But Rock is so committed to depicting himself as an upright citizen that Richard can’t even bring himself to enjoy Nikki’s platonic company. It’s hard to characterize Richard’s existential torment as emotional infidelity, but then he’s miserable at home, too. He says he thinks he loves his wife; I’m not even convinced of that.
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