Step aside Brangelina: Donald Glover and Maya Erskine are the new Mr and Mrs Smith

Mr. & Mrs. Smith ★★★★
Amazon Prime

At first glance a fool’s errand of the streaming age, this remake of the 2005 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt action-comedy about married super-spies coolly catches you off guard and wins you over. It goes deep where you expect broad, makes the most of a lavish budget – location shooting in Manhattan and northern Italy, a juicy supporting cast – and always keeps the focus on the evolving relationship between its two protagonists: a pair of anonymous new hires at a corporate espionage company who pose as a couple, and then become one.

Donald Glover and Maya Erskine in the TV series spin-off Mr. & Mrs. Smith.Credit: Amazon Prime

John and Jane Smith (Donald Glover and Maya Erskine) spend much of the first episode feeling each other out. After all, they’ve been set up by an algorithm. Much the same number-crunching probably went into greenlighting this reimagining of Doug Liman’s goofy movie. The sums made sense, but with creative control in the hands of Glover and other key participants from the acclaimed Atlanta, this limited series actually excels. It’s a small miracle that such a craven concept is so skilfully executed.

As a spy thriller, this Mr. & Mrs. Smith is knowingly bemused. John and Jane get their missions via DM and go from one Bond scenario to another, albeit with comical hiccups such as a mountain resort assignment threatened by John not being able to ski. The expertly staged set-pieces erupt with genuine risk and momentum, but the story never falters in detailing how the dynamic between the co-workers goes from professional to personal to problematic.

Glover and Erksine, who was previously best known for capturing adolescent angst in Pen15, have terrific chemistry, whether as budding lovers or exasperated colleagues. The set-up means that neither really knows the other, so what each of them does and doesn’t reveal – or just lies about – adds to the subterfuge. As a romantic drama, complete with Sarah Paulson as their therapist, there’s a twisted logic to the melancholic story. Their divergent parenting attitudes are revealed when they guard a petulant adult being chased by assassins.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith does so many things so well, whether it’s the staging of a car chase through the winding roads of an Italian village or putting Glover in an all-cream outfit. Even the movie’s greatest hits get remixed amid the emotional intricacies. The show has a different set of existential stakes than Atlanta, but as that boundary-shifting series did, it can tip the narrative over from the everyday into the unhinged without warning. Doya might not be as catchy a portmanteau as Brangelina, but Glover and Erskine deserve all the plaudits.

Loudermilk ★★★½
Netflix

Misanthrope Sam (Ron Livingstone) takes wastrel Claire (Anja Savcic) under his wing in Loudermilk.

A new calendar year means new rights placements. One of the best gets I’ve found is Netflix acquiring all three seasons of this salty comedy about a grumpy substance abuse counsellor. As played by Ron Livingston (Band of Brothers, Sex and the City), Sam Loudermilk is a former music critic, recovering alcoholic and a blossoming misanthrope. “Asshole” is the default description people have for him, while his professional standards have an unprofessional edge.

Made for a now-defunct American cable network and created by filmmaker Peter Farrelly (Green Book) and writer Bobby Mort (The Colbert Report), Loudermilk has a familiar outline. There are trace elements of House and Curb Your Enthusiasm in Sam’s psychological profile – he leans in with an insult and appears to value being right over doing right, although his instincts to help invariably kick in. The show can be irreverent, but it understands that irreverence is a coping mechanism.

From the start there’s a pithy cohort, including Sam’s sponsor, Ben Burns (Will Sasso), and a young wastrel he takes under his wing, Claire (Anja Savcic). What helps elevate this drily funny series is that the characters don’t reset every episode, as in a sitcom. There are revelations and decisions that shift the dynamic, while casting Sam in a different light. Loudermilk is ultimately about more than Sam’s dismissive tirades. The show evolves.

Balenciaga
Disney+
If you can’t wait for next week’s Christian Dior drama on Apple TV+, The New Look, there’s already a Spanish language series about one of the designer’s haute couture contemporaries: Cristobal Balenciaga. An artist in the atelier who was forced to be a pragmatist during the Nazi occupation of France in the 1940s, and who reached his creative peak in the 1950s and ’60s, Balenciaga (Alberto San Juan) is dedicated to elegance. The show operates in a similar way: refinement in the period detail and production values shines through. Any scandals come with subtle reflection.

Maryland
BritBox

Eve Best and Suranne Jones are estranged sisters in Maryland.Credit: Britbox

The British actor Suranne Jones has been on an absolute tear these last few years, impressively headlining both the lesbian period romance Gentlemen Jack and the Scottish crime thriller Vigil. Add another string to her bow with this incisive family drama about a pair of estranged sisters, Becca (Jones) and Rosaline (Eve Best, House of the Dragon), who discover that their late mother lived a second, secret life. The realisation doesn’t set off a reconciliation so much as a reckoning, with the past’s wrongs dragged into the present.

The Thief Collector
DocPlay

Rita Alter in a scene from The Thief Collector.Credit: Docplay

It’s actually not giving too much away to say that this nimble documentary feature begins with an Arizona couple, Jerry and Rita Alter, brazenly stealing a Willem de Kooning portrait Woman-Ochre from a local museum one morning in 1985. The abstract painting wasn’t recovered until 2017, alerting authorities and ultimately director Allison Otto, to the pair. But the theft by the retired teachers is just the starting point, as the story opens up both their complicated past and the very different lives connected to a painting now worth over $200 million.

Trigger Point (season 2)
Stan

Vicky McClure sweats her way through more explosions in season 2 of Trigger Point.Credit: HTM Productions/ITV

The first season of this British bomb disposal thriller, produced by Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio, did just enough with its nail-biting deactivation scenes, where a technician from London’s Metropolitan Police, Lana Washington (Vicky McClure, another Line of Duty alumni), sweated her way through shutting down one explosive device after another, to compensate for the implausible plotting and boilerplate dialogue. The new season addresses the implausible plotting – it’s now wildly implausible. But as corny as this series gets, it moves fast and it has a magnetic lead performance from McClure. You can’t cut her wires.

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.