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Printer-Friendly ModeChris Rock stars in, directs hit-and-miss comedy-drama
March 19, 2007 —
I think I like this movie. Only on some slight level, though. Like most movies that try to be a comedy as well as a drama, it feels as though something is missing from I Think I Love My Wife, the new film directed by and starring Chris Rock. While it is occasionally touching and sometimes funny, it just as often fails to meet these goals.
Rock stars as Richard Cooper, an investment banker and family man who lives in suburbia, only approaching the excitement of the city to go to work, or to shop with his wife and kids on Saturday, the one day of the week he'd rather stay home. As you can probably guess, he is less than satisfied with his lot in life, and the movie begins at a breaking point in which he decides he may need a change.
An interesting angle is that Richard's wife, Brenda (Gina Torres), is neither a bad person nor a bad wife. She's a great mother, works, cooks, and is loyal and kind. It's just that she and Richard no longer have sex.
And so, just as Richard is becoming most fed up with this particular lack, an old crush of his, Nikki (Kerry Washington), comes back into his life.
A short lunch with Nikki plants more seeds of doubt within Richard about whether or not he really loves his wife, and from that point forward he struggles to balance the stability of his family life and the adventurousness of his relationship with Nikki.
This certainly could make for an effective, if somewhat hackneyed, drama. I Think I Love My Wife goes for a comedic feel as well, though, which is generally a wise choice when Chris Rock is a member of the cast.
Some of the comedy bits work. I Think I Love My Wife is narrated by Richard, which makes for the strongest comedy segments of the movie. Scenes where Richard walks about the city with his thoughts exposed to the audience had me laughing. Another scene in which he manufactures a fake fight with his wife over dinner in order to get out of the house to meet Nikki was also very funny.
Other comedy segments, however - such as a thankfully small running gag involving curse words in an elevator - were just strange and annoying.
I did like the treatment of Richard's relationship with Nikki. Without seeing the movie, it may be easy to assume that they are simply having an affair. It's much more complicated than that, though, and it's nice to see a character struggle with something rather than just make an unrealistic snap decision to advance the plot.
I Think I Love My Wife doesn't have all of the elements desired in a good drama or comedy. It does, however, manage to present characters that portray believable emotions and struggles, not often succumbing to senseless decisions and pure stupidity, a rarity in films of this kind. Still, that doesn't excuse the movie of its stunning lapses, such as the most out-of-place duet I have ever seen. I Think I Love My Wife succeeds at not being bad, but also fails at being good.