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I Think I Love My Wife
Reviewed by Theo Michelfeld
Posted: March 21, 2007

Chris Rock used to be one of my favorite comedians. He could greet a crowd, say, "How ya doin' tonight?" and already there was something edgy going on. It was that voice of his, that cadence. Everything he said was funny. It didn't seem to matter what the words were. The sound of them was enough to tickle the funny bone.

Not anymore, though. Fortunately those good old days are preserved on stand-up albums, and in Saturday Night Live re-runs. Meanwhile, Chris Rock's new movie, which he wrote, directed, and stars in, isn't a bit funny. It's called I Think I Love My Wife, and it's depressing, in particular because it is haunted by this once infallible comic. Turns out it does matter what the words are.

The film is about a man's prolonged emotional, and finally physical, betrayal of his wife. The man is passively hostile and un-endearingly naive, his wife is a bully and a tireless buzzkill, and the homewrecker character is a manipulative egomaniac with apparently nothing on her calendar but to sabotage a man's job and marriage to affirm her own attractiveness.

The truth is, these are not necessarily the ingredients of a bad movie. But some funny dialogue would have been welcome. Or the proceedings might have been justified if even ONE of the characters had actually awakened from a life of compulsive self-sabotage. Or, if a message of absolute cynicism was in order, it might have been better not to shine us on with a bogus surrogate awakening, when the husband's loyalty is triggered by a reminder of his KIDS, and he abandons infidelity in mid-grope, and not before getting his sexpot dreamgirl into and out of a pair of miniscule panties, thereby fulfilling his oft-stated primary non-coital fantasy.

The film's message is that the "seven-year-itch" is curable by marital sex. Meanwhile, no one in this film - not even the marriage counselor - seems aware of the concept of affection. These characters do not put their arms around each other, and they do not talk to each other. In fact Chris Rock's character confides non-stop in the audience, but never once speaks an honest word to his wife. I'll tell you what folks: marital sex will only postpone the inevitable for this screen couple; they ain't gonna make it.

People say comedy is a form of anger. Meanwhile, there are other forms of anger, distinguishable from comedy by an absence of laughter. The key ingredient is insight - insight into any source of pain... even cluelessness. Anger happens, and it can be beautiful. But if your anger is not shedding light, it's spreading ignorance.

Chris Rock used to be funny because he used to be right. And that high-pitched, angry voice of his would pound his insights home. But in matters of the heart he is clearly no sage. And to hear that same voice scratch and claw its way around inside the human condition without ever finding a kernel of truth is a downright ugly experience. "I think I love my wife," he says, at the film's conclusion. Once again, he's wrong.

Copyright 2007 Theo Michelfeld