Marital espionage

Put down that Us Weekly or In Touch or Star you have in your hands, the one with the latest photo of Brad and Angelina together, with Maddox in her arms (or is it TomKat on the cover this week? Or another Nick and Jess break-up rumor?). Stop reading Brad’s GQ interview and Angelina’s Marie Claire. If you want the real dish behind the they-won’t-admit-it-but-we-all-know-what’s-going-on romance, just catch Mr. and Mrs. Smith: the two sizzle (and I mean sizzle) together onscreen. My allegiance to Jen notwithstanding, I have to say this is one fantastic–and staggeringly surprising – popcorn spectacle, at the same time a dark, intimate satire you would hardly expect.

Set to a soundtrack of Air Supply’s Making Love Out of Nothing at All suburban married couple John and Jane Smith (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, respectively) blow up cars and shoot down helicopters in their underwear, while sorting out their own domestic laundry. Thus, Mr. and Mrs. Smith presents its appeal: beautiful people put their gorgeous selves on from display, while director Doug Liman (The Bourne Indentity) choreographs thrilling car chases and even more riveting marital dilemmas with such irreverent humor that he blares out secretly delicious ‘80s cheese like "Every time I see you all the rays of the sun are streaming through the waves in your hair" as they do so (c’mon, you know you want to sing along: "The beating of my heart is a drum, and it’s lost and it’s looking for a rhythm like you…"). Sure, you come to see the stars and the sizzle and the action, but you stay for the disarmingly hilarious humor imbued by Liman, screenwriter Simon Kinberg and, yes, even Pitt and Jolie. The two give some of the most accessible, funniest performances of their career, not to mention burn up the screen.

Some of their best scenes – and the film’s best scenes, for that matter – happen inside their seemingly perfect suburban colonial that would make Bree Van De Kamp proud. After years of happiness, the Smiths edge across the five-(or six) year bump and the passion cools: smiles, designer turtlenecks and elegantly served dinners hide a secret they’ve both been keeping from each other – they both are hired assassins. Despite a high-concept premise, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is an astoundingly intelligent and refined satire that deals with marital strife, the entire film filled with hyperbolic commentary on normal married life. The Smiths keep secrets from each other, question loyalty, fidelity, and honesty, trade blows and shots (albeit both physically and verbally) and discuss and argue about their sex life and how long they’ve been married (he says five years, she says six); it’s terrific how a film like this is able to at times be so sensationalistic yet stay so grounded and genuine.

Almost every plot point in the screenplay, given their triviality or significance, can be attributed to married life; John and Jane Smith stand for the married Everyman and Everywoman anywhere in the world going through the same pandemic marital dynamics. At its utmost core, the film is a clever and real metaphor, full of sometimes acerbic, always droll wit that comes very rare with such Hollywood blockbusters.

In many ways, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is one of the smartest, funniest films of its kind in recent memory. To paraphrase Jane, happy endings are for stories that haven’t ended yet. I’m just glad the Smiths have yet to end their epic yet universal marital saga.

Bottom Line: Not simply a sleek shoot-‘em-up, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a rare, intelligent, surprisingly urbane yet hysterical dark comedy cleverly satirizing and hyperbolizing married life in all its chaotic glory.

Grade: B+

To-Do List

Movies

• Watch Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

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For comments, e-mail me at lanz_gryffindor@yahoo.com.