Loosely based on a French film called Chloe in the Afternoon, the film follows Richard (Chris Rock) who appreciates his content life; good job, good wife (Gina Torres), good kids, good marriage. However, despite his appreciation for his life, he is bored with it. He looks at his co-worker (Steve Buscemi) flaunting his extramarital activities and wonders what would it be like to have your cake and eat it too. Enter Nikki (Kerry Washington) a party girl from Richard's past who hasn't changed her partying ways. She tempts him and he starts to question if he should give in to the temptation, or stick to what he has.
For a Chris Rock film, the story is somewhat more subtle than expected: mixing his brand of stand-up comedy with well-developed characters and interesting subtext. It's obvious that during its creation, much attention was spent on the relationship between the characters rather than the situation the characters find themselves in. This paints a rather gray area as there are no heroes or villains, just people trying to get by making choices in their lives.
Special Features
There are two featurettes:
'I Love Making This Movie' - which is a Making Of featurette where the cast and crew talk about their characters and how they entwine in the story. Also interesting are their rather insightful thoughts on the characters themselves and how they identified with them.
'Fox Movie Channel: Casting Session' - is basically how Chris Rock chose who was going to play which character. As stated in the featurette, he wanted to find actors who didn't need to 'act' too much, that they were already the role. Gina Torres, who is married to Laurence Fishburne, was a perfect fit to play Richard's strong wife Brenda. Kerry Washington, more known for playing wives and good girls next door, lobbied Rock for years wanting to sink her teeth into the role of Nikki. Rock himself, was unsure who would play Richard as he did not initially see himself in the role.
Other Special Features include:
- Audio Commentary with Chris Rock
- Deleted Scenes
- Bloopers
- Trailers
It's a film that was unexpectedly impressive. Those who are accustomed to Rock's style of soapbox stand-up will notice the maturation of his comedic approach in I Think I Love My Wife. For a comedy, it's rather thought-provoking.
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