Sporting a thin, black, cashmere sweater pulled over a dress shirt,
Chris Rock — chatting in a Beverly Hills hotel suite a week before his new movie’s release — is every bit the picture of buttoned-up domesticity that he chafes
against in I Think I Love My Wife, based loosely on French auteur Eric Rohmer’s Chloe in the Afternoon, but also given a suburban pinch of Woody Allen’s angsty New York flavoring.
The film, Rock’s second directorial outing, is a small and somewhat personal one, and what might be considered a tough sell to most of his fans. Less than two weeks into its wide release, it’s made just over $10 million. As to the question of whether fans of Rock’s forcefully delivered stand-up comedy want to see him bottled up in a swallowed dramedy of temptation, the answer appears to be no, mostly not.
More interesting, though, is the question of how does one break the news to their mate that they’re “artistically exploring” infidelity and/or desertion — or, in the
extreme case of rapper Eminem and his hit single “Stan,” outright homicide — in proactive, creative form? “As a comedian, I can’t think about everything I say,” Rock says with a shrug. “I’m
out of the concern business. I just do what I do. I’m not Picasso, but
I’m sure he didn’t worry about getting the floor dirty, [going] ‘I need
a drop-cloth!’”