Mr. and Mrs. Smith Review

The new darkly comedic Prime Video series Mr. and Mrs. Smith had a long road to get to the streamer. Initially meant to be a collaboration between Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge back in 2021 (two of the hottest multi-hyphenates in Hollywood), it was announced roughly seven months later that Waller-Bridge had left the project over creative differences and Glover would continue working on the project without her. The pair had been set to play the titular Mr. and Mrs. Smith, with the series taking its basic plot from the Angelina Jolie-Brad Pitt film of the same name. Filming was then delayed another year, from 2022 to 2023, adding Maya Erskine (Pen-15) to the project as a replacement for Waller-Bridge. Now, the series is finally set to drop (in one fell swoop) on Prime Video February 2. And you know what? It’s a hell of a fun, strange, and dark ride.

While the series takes its title from the aforementioned film, the basic premise is different. Rather than a married couple who discovers that their spouse is a spy, the series follows two strangers who are placed together in an incredible New York City brownstone, provided the aliases of John and Jane Smith, and sent on missions around the world for a mysterious spy organization that they know next to nothing about. It’s an Odd Couple with guns – and the potential for real romance to overtake the roles the duo are playacting at – with a stellar crew of guest stars (Parker Posey, Wagner Moura, Michaela Coel, John Turturro, and Sarah Paulson are just some of the big names who pop in at various points in the story as targets, fellow agents, and civilians) – and most of the time, the series works great.

The entire project truly hinges on the chemistry and performances of Glover and Erskine, and I’m happy to report that when these two are on screen together, the writing sparks to life. Jane and John aren’t exactly easy roles to pull off – there’s the performance while they are undercover, the performance while they feel out their assigned partner, and the real character who lurks underneath all of the artifice, trying to break through – but both actors manage exceptionally to create the layers necessary to believe that these individuals would gravitate toward this line of work and thrive at certain points. If you’re familiar with Glover and Erskine’s past work, Mr. and Mrs. Smith will give you a greater appreciation for their talents – Erskine, in particular, is giving a performance like none I’ve ever seen from her, pulling comedy, deep emotional complexity, and dramatic intensity at various points throughout the season. And Glover – who also writes, produces, and directs throughout the season – is asking himself to take on a role that is vastly different from Earn on Atlanta, and he handles it with aplomb.

My one critique is that the writing – for as strong as it can be at moments (and it can be very strong) – can be a bit uneven. It’s clear, after a couple episodes, that we’re being asked to view the various missions as allegories for marriage as a whole. Case in point: One mission involves the pair trying to extract a target from danger and the target behaves with the same emotional maturity as a small child, forcing our duo to essentially take on the role of parents to the whining multi-billionaire. Funny? Sure. But the gag wears pretty thin after twenty minutes and we still have to sit through the rest of the episode with it continuing to play out. There are a number of petty squabbles between the pair – necessary, of course, for dramatic tension. But the continued inability for either character to actually talk to one another about anything that bothers them also starts to grate.

All of that is easy enough to push aside when you’re watching performances as strong as Glover and Erskine, though. What’s harder to look past? The timeline within the series is not particularly clear and time jumps – and character beats – sometimes get lost along the way. I would have loved another couple of episodes to smooth out the sometimes jerky nature of the narrative, letting us see some of the milestones in the pair’s relationship and getting a better understanding of just what is happening between missions. Essentially, I wanted more time with Jane and John and a little less time jumping from mission to mission in order to get character development. A quibble, yes, but one that would have made the series a bit richer and layered.

That being said, there’s an awful lot to love about Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and the episodes truly fly by. The writing is smart, the performances are great, and the characters are interesting – not likeable, not by a long shot, but with enough complexity and oomph to keep you fully invested in their journey. It took awhile to get here, but it’s another solid swing from Glover and his writing team as well as a sensational performance from Erskine.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith premieres on Friday, February 2 on Prime Video. All eight episodes of the series were provided for review.