The film opens with John (Brad Pitt) and Jane Smith (Angelina Jolie) answering questions during marriage counseling. The couple has been married for “five or six” years, but their marriage is suffering to the point that they cannot remember the last time they had sex. They tell the story of their first meeting in Bogotá, Colombia, where they met while both were secretly on the run from Colombian authorities. They quickly fell in love and were married. John later states that Jane “looked like Christmas morning” to him on the day they met.
In reality, John and Jane are both skilled assassins working for different firms, both among the best in their field, but both with very different methods of assassination, with Jane working out thorough plans and John taking a less analytical approach. Each is concealing their true profession from their spouse. Under these cover stories, John and Jane balance their apparently mundane marriage which both of them find after a few years to be growing dull and suffocating with their secretive work. When both are assigned to kill Benjamin “The Tank” Danz (Adam Brody), they encounter each other on the job and botch the hit. Believing each had been sent to stop the other from completing their mission, they seek to discover and eliminate the other.
After a few “mild” attempts on each other’s lives, fueled by a mutual sense of betrayal, the marital spat culminates in a high-octane fight in the Smith house. After a long, evenly-matched fight, with their house shot to shambles, they wind up with guns in each other’s faces. John balks, and lays his gun down; Jane finds she cannot shoot her spouse either, and both succumb to their love instead. Mr. and Mrs. Smith reunite and rediscover each other.
The newly-rekindled Smith partnership is quickly threatened by their employers, who have now decided to eliminate the couple. John’s best friend and coworker, Eddie (Vince Vaughn), turns down a bounty of $400,000 for each Smith, but John and Jane find themselves under fire from an army of assassins. Fending off an attack which blows up their house, the Smiths steal their neighbor’s minivan and successfully destroy three pursuing armored cars of attackers, all while bickering over their fighting styles and newly-discovered personal secrets.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith discover a new source of excitement in their marriage, when they’re hired to assassinate each other…and that’s when the real fun starts. The result is the ultimate action spectacle, as Mr. and Mrs. Smith put their formidable skills to work and their marriage to the ultimate test.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a 2005 American action comedy film directed by Doug Liman and written by Simon Kinberg. The film stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a bored upper-middle class married couple surprised to learn that they are assassins belonging to competing agencies, and that they have been assigned to kill each other. Besides being a box office hit, it also established Jolie and Pitt’s relationship.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith opened on June 10, 2005 in the United States and Canada in 3,424 theaters. The film ranked at the top in its opening weekend, accumulating $50,342,878. Mr. & Mrs. Smith went on to gross $186,336,279 in North America and had a worldwide total of $478,207,520. It was the highest-grossing film for both superstars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but was later surpassed by World War Z for Pitt and Maleficent for Jolie.
Designing the Smiths’ World
The Smiths’ life as a couple is clouded by secrecy, lies, and ennui. This is reflected in, among other things, their home, which symbolizes their dying relationship. It is a space overflowing with creature comforts, exemplifying the height of style but with no real warmth and heart or soul. Theirs is a house, not a home.
“Their surroundings keep them from really experiencing each other,” says Akiva Goldsman. “It’s their beautiful, gilded cage.”
“Where they make their home is very rich, sophisticated and high concept,” describes Production Designer Jeff Mann. “In a nutshell, it’s the old adage that money cannot buy happiness, even within the confines of this beautiful environment. But the house still needed to be a reflection of who they are.”
Brad Pitt was particularly fascinated with the design of the Smith domicile, and he invited Mann, with whom he had worked on the film Kalifornia, to his home to discuss concepts. Mann was aware of Pitt’s longtime interest in art and design and took his style cues from the actor.
“Looking at Brad’s home was a great opportunity to see what he liked and what would help him step into his character,” says Mann. “I listened carefully to his ideas and then we embellished them for the film. Our discussions led to some interesting changes in the set design.”
Of course, since John and Jane are assassins, the house holds many secrets. John’s innocent-looking tool shed, for example, opens to reveal a cellar-sized supply room containing stacks of cash, plus rocket launchers, grenades, and dozens of different handguns. Jane’s oven, too, is a secret repository of high-tech weaponry. The twist is that neither Jane nor John is aware of the other’s covert stashes…until their fateful showdown inside the home.
The film’s look and action set pieces, as impressive as they are, always served the story. The two protagonists may be highly trained assassins, but in the end they have the same problems faced by many married couples: boredom, lies and soul-deadening routine. “In a way,” says Doug Liman, “we’re taking two people capable of near superhuman feats, and dropping them in the middle of suburbia, making them face the same type problems you and I face every day.
“In the end,” he concludes, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a spectacle that riffs on something we all struggle with, which is living with another human being.”
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Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005)
Directed by: Doug Liman
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Adam Brody, Vince Vaughn, Kerry Washington, Michelle Monaghan, Rachel Huntley, Stephanie March, Jennifer Morrison, Theresa Barrera, Melanie Tolbert
Screenplay by: Simon Kinberg
Production Design by: Jeff Mann
Cinematography by: Bojan Bazelli
Film Editing by: Michael Tronick
Costume Design by: Michael Kaplan
Set Decoration by: Victor J. Zolfo
Art Direction by: Keith Neely, David Sandefur
Music by: John Powell
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence, intense action, sexual content, strong language.
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: June 10, 2005
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