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Trailer for "I Think I Love My Wife"

Chris Rock’s second film as a director is this remake of an early 1970s movie about a middle-class man considering sexual alternatives to his comfortable but sedate marriage. I refer not to the Elliot Gould vehicle I Love My…Wife (an understandable mistake, given the title and plot) but to Eric Rohmer’s 1972 Chloe in the Afternoon, considered by many to be one of the very best of the great French director’s films. I could easily fill a column comparing the original and the remake, that being the kind of thing that a degree in English literature trains one to do. But what’s the point, given that Eric Rohmer fans and Chris Rock fans are as close as you can get to a pair of mutually exclusive subsets? Suffice to say that any of you willing to make that crossover shouldn’t be too disappointed: Rock’s fans will find enough mildly raunchy humor to appeal to them, while Rohmer fans ought to be able to appreciate how Rock and collaborator Louis C. K. have adapted his study of bourgeois morality not only to a different era but to a black consciousness as well. Cast aside the plot, in which Wall Street success Rock is tempted to stray by the ex-girlfriend of a friend from his single days, and there’s a lot to enjoy here in the casual details of black middle-class life, from the couples dinners that always seem to involve the same conversations (rap is tacky, blacks ought to take some lessons from the Jews, and what the hell is wrong with Michael anyway?) to wondering how many other black children will be at a weekend play date. And Rock is smart enough to carry over some of Rohmer’s more universal observations, like the odd intimacy of shopping for clothing to the joys of exploring a big city when you have the sense to stay away from the crowded places.