I Think I Hate This Movie
I Think I Love My Wife / Daniel Carlson
It’s amazing, and more than a little weird, how many stand-up comedians are truly awful actors. Standing in front of a defiant crowd and making them laugh for 45 minutes takes no small amount of skill, as well as the adoption and amplification of a particular persona: Every comedian is a slightly more amplified version of themselves on stage, which makes for an engaging live performance. (For instance, Jerry Seinfeld’s easygoing whine is miles away from the measured tone of his regular speech, which is half an octave lower.) Unfortunately, acting to the back of the theater looks terrible on film, all cloying and amateurish and seemingly oblivious to the fact that film is medium capable of capturing the beautiful subtleties in an actor’s face or voice. This is why Robin Williams remains popular in live performances and also why Mrs. Doubtfire is an awful, awful movie. The latest example of comedian as emotional blunt object comes by way of Chris Rock, a gifted stand-up performer who hacks his way through I Think I Love My Wife like he’s going to get a prize for acting like he’s acting. Further, having writer-director Rock reinterpret the French New Wave is like having, well, Louis C.K. reinterpret the French New Wave. Rock and Louis C.K. have collaborated to take whatever joy or grace existed in Eric Rohmer’s Love in the Afternoon and suck the life right out of it with the reimagined, repurposed, regurgitated mess that is I Think I Love My Wife, a crushingly dull film that offers drama without conflict and comedy without humor. But the biggest tragedy here is that the script is loaded with potential growth and skill and what could have been a fantastic story about a man coming to grips with his waning youth and the ways that his family is redefining his life.
As Richard Cooper, Rock kicks the whole thing off with his voice-over narration, which has all the character of someone doing a bad Chris Rock impression, while he lays out his life for the camera: work, family, sleep. Repeat. Richard’s wife, Brenda (Gina Torres), is a beautiful, caring mother to their two small children, Kelly (Milan Howard) and Brian (some baby). Richard loves Brenda and their cozy house in the Westchester suburbs, but they’ve been married for seven years and haven’t had sex in a while, which is pissing Richard off something fierce. It’s no surprise that Rock and Louis C.K. place sex as the be-all, end-all of Richard’s life, especially Louis C.K.; this, after all, is the guy who starred in an HBO sitcom about a harried husband who would hide in the kitchen closet to masturbate when he wanted to get away from the pressures of his life, and that kind of emotional retardation doesn’t exactly lend itself to nuanced screenwriting. There are no real reasons for Richard and Brenda’s sudden slow-down in lovemaking, and no further indications of other problems they might be having or may have battled in the past. Richard just gets fed up and becomes engrossed in his fantasy world, which involves (among other things) wandering around Saks during his lunch break just to stare at women. Now, it’s understandable that Richard’s got a roving eye; a man will stare at any crotch placed in front of him, apparently. But it’s one thing for a character to scope strangers on a train, and another for him to delay his lunch break till 2 p.m. just so he can catch hot single women shopping. That’s … creepy.
Richard works at a generic investment banking firm in Manhattan, where one day he gets a visit from Nikki Tru (Kerry Washington), the stripperishly named ex-girlfriend of one of Richard’s old buddies, and the kind of woman that looks like trouble a mile off. She needs a recommendation for a job, and she takes the opportunity to flirt with Richard and take him to lunch and basically plant all kinds of dangerous seeds in his mind. Soon enough, Richard becomes involved in an emotionally hazardous friendship with Nikki, having lunch with her almost every afternoon. The main section of the film unspools as Richard finds himself increasingly drawn into Nikki’s wild life, like when he winds up taking the shuttle flight to Washington, D.C., to help her clean out her old apartment, only to run into her psychotic ex-boyfriend and get pummeled. The scene isn’t played for laughs, but there aren’t any dramatic consequences, either: Richard simply gets beat up, then escapes as cops show up and cuff the boyfriend. One night a few weeks later, Richard actually picks a fight with Brenda just so he can get out of the house to meet Nikki Tru at a club, where of course she never shows. Richard, tired of waiting on her, gets blazed with a couple of sales girls who recognized him from Saks and dances to “Table Dance,” a curiously meta moment that almost made my head explode. I would’ve welcomed the relief.
Rock’s acting is atrocious, plain and simple, with every movement and word forecasting his clear discomfort with playing pretend for the cameras. Unable to unleash the hostile persona that makes his stand-up appearances so riveting, his voice is softened out of all confidence as he minces about and rolls his eyes and acts put-upon. It’s a painful performance to watch, just like it’s painful to see Steve Buscemi and Edward Herrmann wasted in supporting roles, as Richard’s coworker and boss, that go nowhere and offer — surprise — no dramatic element to the story. Will Richard land the big account? Will his relationship with his colleagues suffer because of his attachment to Nikki? It’s never answered. Washington is physically alluring but isn’t given much to do besides pout at Richard and gradually seduce him. There’s no motive for what she does, which is in line with a lot of Rock’s comedy: Women will screw you over, and don’t need much of a reason. Torres is a center of warmth and light in the family scenes, but again, the tacked-together screenplay doesn’t provide her with any depth or humanity, or explain why Brenda’s starting to drift from Richard.
That’s the film’s larger problem: None of the scenes actually relate to each other. They involve the same characters, and loosely revolve around the same few themes, but the questions necessary to animate the subtext of a good film — Why are these people interacting? What’s the desired result? — go unanswered. Rock’s directorial skills are astoundingly haphazard, and he’s too busy working bits from his act into the dialogue to give any thought to the emotional flow of the story he’s trying to tell. Most films succeed by applying their own internal logic to a story, but there flat-out isn’t any in I Think I Love My Wife: From the paper-thin depictions of the loving Brenda and the whore Nikki, to Richard’s unexplained aimlessness, to the hints of subplots that are never explored, the film is a phony exercise in storytelling masquerading as a comedy. I didn’t laugh once.
Daniel Carlson is the managing editor of Pajiba and a low-level employee at a Hollywood industry magazine. You can visit his blog, Slowly Going Bald.
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Comments
In other words....it was exactly like I thought Pootie Tang was. It had promise, but never went anywhere.
Posted by: Vermillion at March 16, 2007 9:01 PM
"Richard's wife, Brenda (Gina Torres), is a beautiful, caring mother to their two small children"
Oh Zoe...why are you doing this?? There must be better job offers than this out there for you! The title alone makes me want to stick my head in the oven...
I know Wash died and all, but really...
Posted by: KDM at March 16, 2007 9:20 PM
I wish he would stop writing, directing, and acting in movies. He is on the verge of M. Night status with a laundry list of mind-splitingly bad movies. I think I hate Chris Rock.
Posted by: Daisy at March 16, 2007 9:29 PM
Why can't Rock settle for being a genius at stand-up? He really is an amazing performer when he's prowling the stage with a mic in his hand. Why must all stand-ups now try to cross over to acting? Is it the Robin Williams effect? The knowledge that Seinfeld rakes in millions while sitting on his ass? "If Drew Carey can do it, surely I can too"? It's like watching Eric Clapton attempt to prove that he's also a master of the banjo.
Posted by: apocalipstick at March 16, 2007 10:01 PM
I think I saw this coming.
Posted by: Kevin Longrie at March 16, 2007 11:39 PM
I think I'll save my 8 dollars. And spend it on booze. Your review is already more entertaining than this film in that you referred to George Brett's crotch. I've met the man, and I'm not surprised that women don't want to look at it.
Posted by: greentara at March 17, 2007 12:19 AM
...and Brian (some baby).
Favorite casting note, ever.
Posted by: Louise at March 17, 2007 1:40 AM
I dunno, I liked "Head of State." But I got the impression that was something more personal for him.
Posted by: Justin at March 17, 2007 2:59 AM
Gina Torres fucking rules. She was fierce as Nebula on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. I just hope that this will help her to get some better roles in the future, because she deserves way better.
Posted by: Kris at March 17, 2007 4:41 AM
while reading the *glowing* new york times review of this movie, i was wonderifng if i had lost track of time and it was really april 1st.
Posted by: celery at March 17, 2007 6:50 AM
I knew this movie was total shit as soon as I saw that Chris Rock had put on his Serious Actor Hat by donning a pair of square-framed specs.
Posted by: stardust savant at March 17, 2007 11:29 AM
Hooah to Kris' comment. I love Gina Torres... but nowhere near enough to see this movie.
Posted by: Gabs at March 17, 2007 3:08 PM
Oh Zoe...why are you doing this??
I had the same reaction when I first saw the trailer. "Nooo, Zoe!"
Posted by: Jacqueline at March 17, 2007 3:27 PM
I have one request for everybody: Hate all you want on Chris Rock in this movie [or in movies period], just don't hate on Everybody Hates Chris. It's the one thing Chris gets right week after week.
Posted by: Tauwan at March 17, 2007 10:17 PM
I thought it was called 'Chloe in the Afternoon'. Is it?
Posted by: M at March 17, 2007 11:21 PM
ERROR: The movie is based on the French film "Chloe in the Afternoon" not "Love in the Afternoon"
Posted by: loquesea at March 17, 2007 11:21 PM
I believe the title was originally mistranslated as "Chloe..." but has been changed back to "Love..." for the recent re-release on DVD.
Posted by: Iris at March 18, 2007 2:36 AM
I see. Like 'The Bicycle Thief'/B'icycle Thieves' thing, huh?
Posted by: M at March 18, 2007 3:35 PM
The message of the film seems to be that you can either live the wild life of your late teens and 20s, defined here as hanging out with attractive members of the opposite sex who are not necessarily right for you, partying, etc. or you can grow up and be an adult, which seems to involve working a dull job and losing yourself in a loveless, sexless marriage. The idea that someone could get married and, gasp!, stay happy and sexually active seems preposterous. Also, if the feel good message of the movie is accepted, it is in fact better to be miserable in that loveless, sexless marriage than to escape it and find some semblance of happiness.
Also, how do you let this review go by without commenting on the razzie-worthy, vomit-enducing scene where Rock and his wife resolve their differences and return to their bland existence by sort of (badly) breaking into song?
Posted by: bartap at March 18, 2007 5:27 PM
I Think I'll skip this Str82dvd thingy.
Posted by: Jean at March 19, 2007 5:31 AM
"There are no real reasons for Richard and Brenda's sudden slow-down in lovemaking..."
Thank you for pointing that out. The wife is perfect, she's just "too tired" to have sex. It would have been better to show one scene of them arguing, or the kids barfing or interrupting their parents cuddling or SOMETHING to show that homelife sucks right now.
Please check out "Savage Love", Dan Savage's sex blog, where the "married and no sex" issue was discussed recently. Married women: no matter how tired you are, you must put out, even if it's for five minutes or a blowjob. Otherwise, learn to accept that your husband will look elsewhere for sex. Married men: you must accept blowjobs from the wife for sex, and compromise on the frequency. Otherwise, learn to live with an increasingly bitter wife.
Posted by: wavemaven at March 19, 2007 2:31 PM
wavemaven, while I can't see too many married women going for that deal, if I did hear of a married man who didn't think it was at least fair, if not a miracle, I would have to punch him dead in his nose.
Posted by: Vermillion at March 19, 2007 9:31 PM
This movie was beyond disappointing. Didn't laugh one time. There were only a handful of people in the theater, on opening night no less, and two walked out. I don't know how anyone in their right mind, Rock in particular, could watch this in its entirety and think to themselves "yeah, we nailed it!" There wasn't an original thought or line or idea in the entire movie. Yet, somehow the critic in my local paper gave this 3 stars. I thought maybe it must be a guy thing, but I was relieved to read this spot-on review claiming otherwise.
Posted by: krisdee87 at March 20, 2007 1:36 PM
hm. exactly what i thought it would be.
thanks for saving my money and time, daniel!
Posted by: becky at March 20, 2007 3:33 PM
Wash does not approve. This is like another giant spike through his heart.
Is it wrong for me to admit that Kerry Washington looked pretty damn hot? It sounds shallow, but damn.
Posted by: Vermillion at March 20, 2007 9:29 PM
I strenuously object to the title of this film. It implies that its surprising to ACTUALLY be in love with your wife! If modern man thinks marriage is so awful then NEWSFLASH! don't get married. :B
Posted by: Ducky at March 22, 2007 6:17 PM
What the hell is wrong with Chris Rock? He's awesome at stand-up, why is it always like he's terrified of taking chances with projects off the stage? I dunno, maybe it's just mw, but he seems to go with his ego a lot.
Posted by: zadzi at March 23, 2007 3:33 AM
i cannot believe what i am reading! for me this was his funniest movie ever, and i'm not easily pleased but he definitely delivered on this one. get a sense of humour people.
Posted by: kingsley at August 13, 2007 6:43 AM
1. Don't know why I love you - the brand new heavies
2. head bangin - josh winget
3. headrush - boomish
4. any other day - blondefire
5. feeling lucky - brad mersereau
6. catchy tune - bill gordon
7. dig that bass - minerva portnoy
8. faraway - dara schindler
9. y'all know me - transcenders
10. be yo daddy - king juju
11. ain't no game - basko
12. one two knockout - transcenders
13. the look of love - erica canales
14. itsy bitsy spider - traditional
15. after midnight bossa - midnight jazz
16. mare nostrum - dynamedion
17. f the cracker - louis c. k.
18. lagiers disco - matt hirt
19. country livin' - esthero
20. could be the one - gussie miller
21. tired of you - foo fighters
22. the seed 2.0 - the roots
23. new frontier - robert walsh
24. canon in d - the royal philharmaonic orchestra
25. marriage of figaro - the royal philharmaonic orchestra
26. the beat is - channel two
27. table dance - maestro
28. crazy - gnarls barkley
29. song for sanya - brad brad mersereau jr.
30. all night long - louis c.k. - marcus miller
Posted by: Nate at August 17, 2007 4:16 AM
