‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’ Review: A Smart, and Smartly Dressed, Adaptation

At one point in Amazon’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith, John and Jane Smith (Donald Glover and Maya Erskine) become infatuated with another couple. Like them, the pair are part of an espionage program in which agents operate undercover as a married couple. Only these other Smiths seem so much more experienced and self-assured. There’s a movie-star swagger to them as they talk casually about the level of danger they’ve faced and their flawless mission record. It’s enough to make John and Jane, relative newbies in the field, feel inadequate.

Glover and Francesca Sloane might have felt a similar insecurity when they were asked to create a series based on Doug Liman’s 2005 box office hit starring two of the biggest movie stars on the planet, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, whose real-life love affair only ensured the film’s pop-cultural impact. But while Glover and Erskine might have a different way of doing things, this Mr. & Mrs. Smith proves to be every bit as thrilling. Rather than play out as a simple do-over of Liman’s film, the series builds something different on the sturdy foundation established by it.

In the movie, the Smiths are a long-married couple who, unbeknownst to each other, both work as elite assassins. The series flips things by having John and Jane meet for the very first time in the opening episode. Rather than watching a seemingly ideal marriage explode, we get to see a new relationship being created as John and Jane travel the world, taking part in high-stakes missions before returning to their luxurious New York safehouse. (Later on, this apartment almost leads to their cover being blown by a keen-eyed real estate agent—a clever gag about how these secret lairs ever get built without anyone noticing.)

In most cases, John and Jane’s assignments are a little more grounded than the bombastic adventures involving ziplines and rocket launchers that their big-screen counterparts engaged in. Their missions mostly involve discreetly tracking targets from location to location or coming up with a discreet way to bug someone’s smartphone. Theirs is a quieter, subtler kind of spycraft, which is convenient because it gives John and Jane more time to talk.

Their relationship is at the center of the series as they go from relative strangers to something resembling a real couple. They both start out incredibly guarded—unsurprising given the nature of their work—but after a few near-death experiences and late-night conversations, they begin to grow close. Glover and Erskine’s chemistry doesn’t possess the red-hot crackle of Pitt and Jolie’s; it’s a slow burn that eventually yields something richer. It’s an on-screen relationship that feels incredibly real, even when the people involved are zipping around Europe firing guns.

They’re also funny together. John and Jane banter with each other in a naturalistic way that’s often juxtaposed with the severe stakes or outright absurdity of the situation they’ve found themselves in. And as their relationship progresses, they have arguments that are truly bracing—like a scene from Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy but with bullets flying overhead.

Each of the show’s eight episodes offers a self-contained tale in which a new aspect of Jane and John’s relationship is explored via the tropes of a typical spy story. One episode sees them transporting a high-value person, played by a delightfully cantankerous Ron Perlman, into the Italian mountains to protect him from assassination. Very quickly, the couple comes to look like exhausted parents, desperately trying to keep the temperamental figure in the backseat compliant while also fending off a never-ending procession of practical issues. Parenting a grumpy toddler might not actually be the same as running for your life while micro-managing a cantankerous mega-criminal, but it can surely feel that way.