It was something of a coup when Amazon signed both Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge to exclusive overall deals. They were, in theory, jumping the queue for the next Atlanta and Fleabag – something worth paying for. A remake of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the 2005 movie best known for stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s affair, was theirs, though it seemed an unlikely project for them both. That proved to be the case, with Waller-Bridge exiting the collaboration in 2021 and later stating “some marriages don’t work out.”
Three years later the series arrives on Prime Video with Maya Erskine (Pen15) starring opposite Glover as a pair of romantically-linked assassins. Glover’s TV adaptation differs from the movie in one key way; where Pitt and Jolie were contract killers who kept their work secret from one another, Glover and Erskine are put together by their boss and told to pretend to be a couple in order to evade suspicion. Naturally, they begin to fall in love for real. That “some marriages don’t work out” line could well act as the strapline for the new Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which charts the journey of a romantic relationship from its unconventional early stages to the bitter end. Think of it like Marriage Story with more guns and explosions.
The nuts and bolts of Mr. & Mrs. Smith work well, even if they are somewhat generic for the creative team behind the unpredictable and original Atlanta. There is a surprisingly procedural aspect to the show, with the couple (John and Jane Smith) being handed jobs to execute at the beginning of each episode. The action side of things is suitably bold and expensive looking, while there is a charmingly ramshackle approach to the way John and Jane carry out their work. That is to say they’re not always very good at it, as one scene involving a wealthy auction attendee (John Turturro) and an overdose of truth serum shows with amusing results. Similarly, an episode set at a ski resort ends with John’s blood spattered across the snow. Glover’s role as John is admirably self-effacing, with the actor sidestepping the temptation to write himself as the all-action hero and instead landing on a romantically confused secret agent bruised both physically and emotionally.
Though they lack the red-hot chemistry of Pitt and Jolie, the relationship between Glover and Erskine feels genuine. An episode midway through finds them free of their murderous day job and able to just hang out. They bicker about his noisy eating habits and debate who gets cooler as they age (they agree it’s Dolly Parton and Sade). It almost feels like a shame when the covert missions come back into play. And therein lies the problem with the new Mr. & Mrs. Smith; fans of both Atlanta and Pen15 have seen this couple do much more personal, unique and intriguing work elsewhere. In comparison, this all feels a little cold-blooded. Good for a hired gun. Less so for a TV show.
‘Mr And Mrs Smith’ streams on Prime Video From February 2