message in the movies By Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader

           
I Think I Love My Wife  Rated R
Directed by Chris Rock.  Starring Chris Rock, Kerry Washington.


Photos © Fox Searchlight
Chris Rock at his best is a dangerous stand-up comic, not afraid to tackle hot-button topics like racism and hypocrisy while also seeming to be a likeable and positive human being.  (His gentle sitcom, Everybody Hates Chris, is often laced with some great satirical observations.)  This new film is Rock’s remake of Chloe in the Afternoon, a 1972 French film by Eric Rohmer.  Rohmer’s film tells the story of a successful and happily married man who finds himself tempted to stray when he begins a flirtation with the former mistress of an old friend.  Rock’s remake retains a lot of the charm and the subtlety of the original film, while adding some profanity and crudeness and some of his trademark observations on class and race.  It doesn’t quite work, but I give Rock points for trying something different.  One of the problems, I think, is in how Rock depicts his women characters.  The wife is presented as a capable teacher of young children who is too tired after work to give her man good lovin’ and the temptress is depicted as a relentless sexual pursuer.  Rock’s character, financial banker Richard Cooper, then becomes the only character with any complexity.  Despite its basic humanity, I Think I Love My Wife remains a sexist film.  The film is at its best when observing the ways in which Richard’s choices lead to serious consequences, and on showing how one little lie of convenient deception will lead to greater peril and temptation.  But Rock the stand-up comic, can’t resist the jokes, and some of the best laughs also interrupt the tempo and premise of the movie.   Kerry Washington as Nikki, the object of desire manages to transcend the sexual stereotypes of the script. The movie is not raunchy or obvious enough to appeal to men who enjoy Rock’s standup and the script is too demeaning to women to make this a big chick flick.  It remains an ambitious curiosity.  I think I liked I Think I Love My Wife, but I liked the original film more.  There’s a name for those few people who seem to prefer the French originals to the American remakes. I think they call them “pretentious film critics”.  Avoid them at all costs.

Pitchfork Rating: Three halos. (A morality play with something to say about the deception of sin and the value of truth.)  Three pitchforks. (Even though this is a moral and often funny film about the values of family and marital fidelity over meaningless sexual relationships, there is constant profanity and crude language.)

 

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