Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a 2024 TV series reboot or reimaging of the 2005 American spy comedy-drama film of the same name. Rebooting is about deconstructing. You’re taking source material and breaking it down to universality. The original owes its success to the real-life chemistry of “Brangelina.” The portmanteau combines the names of Hollywood megastars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Though they denied it for years, the then-couple fell in love while filming it. Pitt was actress Jeniffer Aniston’s husband at the time. So, the idea of Brangelina’s romance being that white-hot generated a life-imitating-art intrigue. But what do Donald Glover and Maya Erskine offer in their versions of Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Well, a lot. A very outsized relatability to the source material’s core elements.
The tagline is, “Marriage is their most dangerous mission.” Speaking from personal experience, it’s true for most of us millennials. In real life, our generation is in a very critical phase. We’re facing hard truths that Mr. & Mrs. Smith doesn’t shy away from. The challenges two people face becoming partners in life goals. These days, they feel like contractual agreements or business decisions to pool resources. The first episode poses our most relatable real-life concern, “What happens if we fail?” While Glover is a co-creator, for fans, it is still easy to spot his signature slow-burn mimesis. It’s something, for me, many early critics missed devouring the eight-episode first season. They don’t know when or what millennials enjoy savoring. For many of us, it’s seeing the triumphs and travails of our generation in the art we experience.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith tells the story of two spy recruits who jump at the opportunity of espionage, wealth, and travel. But they didn’t read the fine-print stipulation: posing as a married couple. Each episode checks all the boxes, starting with the show’s directors. Hiro Murai, Karena Evans, Christian Sprenger, Amy Seimetz, and Glover. It uses New York City as its muse and for its primary location. But breathtaking cinematography across Italy is what sells you on the spy fantasy. The snowy Dolomites of Calfosch. Also, the coastal village of Veneto not far from Venice. And Lake Como. Of course, the show’s accurate use of New York City did not disappoint either. Otherwise, this review serves no purpose on NY-AF! The couple’s Manhattan home provides its outsized relatability and the story’s legitimacy.
At the core of Mr. & Mrs. Smith is the universality of which we’re discussing. Taking intuit spy-genre tropes and turning them on their heads with millennial social awkwardness. Mr. & Mrs. Smith is writer Francesca Sloane’s first time as showrunner. But this isn’t her first successful attempt at absurdism and often surrealism on a sociological grand scale. She’s responsible for some of Glover’s most groundbreaking Atlanta episodes. Like subversive “The Big Payback.” The episode “devastates even as it charms,” said Entertainment Weekly. With Twilight Zone-like aptness, a white guy lives in a world where white people have to pay restitution taxes on their privilege. If their ancestors benefited from slavery, that is. In Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Sloane employs similar mechanics of parallelism to the taxing reality of millennial life.
When Jane ponders about their employer’s agenda after their first mission, John responds, “Who cares? We get a plunge pool. The way things are in the world right now, I’m happy we have a job.” Sloane takes a realistic couple you’d see walking the streets of New York City today and gives them the break of a lifetime. In the first episode, Jane proposes a pact to John, “make a certain amount of money, and then we can part our ways.” Instead of spy stuff catching them off guard, their unexpected romance does. And they must balance it against espionage, wealth, and travel. Can they make their dream house a happy home? Hence, “Marriage is their most dangerous mission.”
Being resourceful is a crucial aspect of being a showrunner. Part of that is finding the best uses for your guest stars. Also, in the first episode, we’re introduced to Alexander Skarsgård and Eiza González. Another and more seasoned John and Jane at their wit’s end. They bring to life—as Pitt and Jolie did—the most prominent spy trope—unrelatable good looks. Their happy home is a dusty shack in the middle of nowhere. Skarsgård and González convey that their Smith characters found peace. Here, you can see director Hiro Murai showcasing his talent for crafting papable mimesis. He directed that episode of Atlanta, too. Eiza’s and Erskine’s Janes are juxtaposed with such fleeting subtly that if you’d blink, you’d miss it. Maya Erskine is the new Jane recruit sitting in the back row waiting for her interview. Without words, anyone can be Jane.
Erskine is good-looking in a relatable way. She has a face that would arouse someone’s urge to “settle down,” like in it for the long haul. Her Jane gives off vibes of someone you’d trust to take the lead. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the original cast Jane, couldn’t have pulled this off. Not with Glover as John, at least. The Erskine and Glover pairing is the only way this works. Such casting extends to guest stars, too. The process is like stacking dominoes. One misstep and your art collapses.
Paul Dano stars as the “Hot Neighbor.” He’s the awkward, unsung hero “Klitz” in The Girl Next Door. Could he be cast as “hot” if Erskine wasn’t the lead? Cast in a serious role or comedic relief, John Turturro excels in everything. In Mr. & Mrs. Smith, he’s a hilarious, eccentric billionaire with weird kinks. He’s responsible for the on-screen couple’s first kiss. It isn’t romantic, but cringe. Only Turturro makes this funny and believable. The same goes for Billy Campbell and Sharon Horgan, as a couple afflicted with marital ennui. Or, Wagner Moura, acclaimed for his award-nominated portrayal of Pablo Escobar in Netflix’s Narcos. He plays another more seasoned John Smith with Parker Posey as “Other Jane.”
In one of the series’s best episodes, Glover and Eskine joke that his accent makes you trust him. Again, these subtleties are as fragile as stacked dominoes that only these chosen talents can stack.
Ron Perlman is known for action roles, such as Vincent the lion-man in Beauty and the Beast. Or blockbusters franchises like Blade and Hellboy. In Mr. & Mrs. Smith, he plays Toby Hellinger, a helpless assignment of Glover and Eskine. Perlman is also real-life father-in-law of Francesca Sloane. She’s married to his son. Imagine Sloane bringing this helpless character to an action legend Ron Perlman. Sloane is part of a collective, I call them “Glover, Murai, and co.” Their signature formula always involves taking everyone out of their comfort zone. It includes us, too. The talented Sarah Paulson as the Smiths’ therapist needs no further context. It is also one of this season’s funniest episodes and performances.
Forced inclusion is one thing that has always bothered me about televsion and movies for millennials. What the Mr. & Mrs Smith series doesn’t shy away from is the uncomfortable conversation about race. Being in an interracial relationship myself, I can attest to the fact that everyone avoids the talks involved. In a session with Paulson, Glover brings up a real-world obstacle. His “bonding with Black people.” He claims Jane is jealous because it is “something that she can’t do as well.” Despite being his targets as a spy, their exchanges bring him connections and joy he struggles to achieve with Jane.
Common Sense Media’s “Diverse Representations” section says the show references race, “but this isn’t central to the story.” Case in point. Many other reviews I’ve read struggle to connect with this aspect. But this was the same for Atlanta, as well.
Then there’s Michaela Coel, the British actress most Americans know from Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror. “USS Callister” episode. Like Wagner Moura, Coel’s accent too disarms us. It enhances her British dry wit, even when delivering lines with a serious tone. It lends to one of the series’s most comical exchanges. “Just to be clear, we’re not bonding. You have a gun on me.” When breaking down the source material to its universality, this is it. When Simon Kinberg developed the original story, it was his thesis project for film school. “Couples therapy at gunpoint,” an executive called the original Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
The way this reboot deals with millennial social awkwardness, marriage, and everything that comes with it is worth the watch. Pulling this off as a convincing spy series is hilarious and not easy to execute. The cast and crew crafting this with outsized relatability deserve special acknowledgment. Its mastery and awareness. Glover reached out to Brad Pitt for advice about it. Pitt responded only saying that he’d “do great.” He was right because that’s what this reboot is.
