The Bottom Line: ‘Love’ Is a Battlefield for Rock

“A man is only as faithful as his options,” Chris Rock joked in his HBO special Bigger and Blacker.

So think of I Think I Love My Wife as Rock putting that declaration to the test.

Based on French auteur Eric Rohmer’s Chloe in the Afternoon, Rock‘s second directorial effort explores how his devoted but bored family man reacts to being aggressively pursued by a woman (Kerry Washington) straight out of his sexual fantasies.

“I wanted to do a real movie about a real person’s life,” Rock tells The Bottom Line of his decision to follow the White House spoof Head of State with I Think I Love My Wife.

Unlike Head of State, which failed to capture the wit and wisdom of Rock‘s politically savvy HBO talk show, I Think I Love My Wife is a mediation on marriage executed in the raucous manner of his standup act.

Rock had no prior knowledge of Rohmer or his Six Moral Tales when he randomly purchased a copy of Chloe in the Afternoon—“The girl on the cover was attractive,” he admits. But he found the premise of Rohmer’s subtler character study funny enough to warrant a remake.

“I knew no one would write something like this for me,” Rock says. “So I had to write it for myself.”

The humor often gets lost in the translation when Hollywood Americanizes a French comedy. Remember Just Visiting and Pure Luck? But what makes I Think I Love My Wife work is that it addresses themes universal to all men in or out of a committed relationship.

This may present a problem for Rock. I Think I Love My Wife won’t leave women feeling warm and fuzzy. This isn’t Daddy’s Little Girls. Any husband taking his wife to see I Think I Love My Wife should brace himself for a jab in the ribs whenever Rock‘s eyes start to wander. (Also working against Rock is renewed speculation that his 10-year marriage to Malaak Compton is all but over. That won’t sit well with women who watched Rock‘s recent appearance on Oprah with Compton. So Rock later told People that a New York Daily News story proclaiming that his marriage is in trouble is untrue.)

Rock, though, insists “women really respond” to Washington‘s smart and sexy Nikki Tru, who does come across as more sympathetic than scheming when all is said and done. Rock had better be right, or I Think I Love My Wife won’t do any better than Head of State’s $38.1 million.

Rock’s a realist. He knows he was “in a position to take a chance” on I Think I Love My Wife thanks to the one-two punch of The Longest Yard and Madagascar. And he’ll certainly have the chance to direct again if good fortune continues to smile down on him after he stumbled with Bad Company, Osmosis Jones and—ugh—Pootie Tang. Still, we’re more likely to hear from Rock before we see him again. His next projects are both animated family films: Jerry Seinfeld’s Bee Movie (Nov. 2) and Madagascar 2 (Nov. 8, 2008).

Rock may put plans on hold for a fall standup tour if the script to his much-awaited reunion with Eddie Murphy is ready. The Brett Ratner-directed heist action comedy which would mark Rock’s first onscreen pairing with Murphy since 1992’s Boomerang.

“It has to be good, especially as it as involves me and Eddie,” Rock says.

It had better be, as Rock doesn’t need another buddy flick to bomb. Rock may be wrong when he says he and Anthony Hopkins “worked well together” in Bad Company— they were as mismatched as Mel Gibson and Danny Glover were made for each other in the Lethal Weapon series, as Rock should know—but at least he realizes that Bad Company was “a very well-executed bad movie.”

He’s also waiting for the script for a camping comedy that would pair him with SNL buddy David Spade.

“We’re like frat brothers,” say Rock of SNL alumni always working together. “Frat brothers always get in business together.” 

Spade can’t buy a hit unless he’s working with someone from SNL. So it’s debatable whether it’s good business for Rock to work with Spade.

Then there are the Oscars. Rock‘s game to host the ceremony a second time. Why not? He not only had “fun” but he’s still getting mileage out of his poking fun at Jude Law.

“I can’t believe it is still news,” Rock says of the still-miffed Law. “I hope he thanks me when he wins his Oscar.”

Somehow, though, it’s not hard to imagine Rock still getting the last laugh.

The Bottom Line
After the waste opportunity that was Head of State, Rock shows signs of improvement with I Think I Love My Wife. He’s got “no big plans” to pursue a directing career, but at the very least I Think I Love My Wife reveals he could have a brighter future behind the camera than such fellow ex-SNLers as Dan Aykroyd, Billy Crystal and, ahem, Eddie Murphy.