Review of Mr. & Mrs. Smith

There is no real need to repeat extensively the comments in other negative reviews - the few positive ones being from those who just love the actors anyway, or who feel that it is a very good screwball comedy. As one says, there is no accounting for taste... To sum up elements I fully share with the majority opinion : What is to be enjoyed in this film : possibly the main actors, although Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery have had much stronger and funnier roles, both in comedies and other genres; Gene Raymond, who gets the scene with the only real laughs; the opening scenes, which are intriguing and rather promising; and the production, but it has never saved a weak film. What is not to be enjoyed : as others said yes, Hitchcock's uncharacteristically bland direction - he has indeed clearly neither affinity nor the touch for screwball comedy, and not much interest for this story - actually he said as much by commenting he filmed it just to oblige Carole Lombard; but principally the script, which mostly wastes the premise by failing to develop it, and instead brings it slowly towards a very uninspiring conclusion. Just one nuance with other comments, though : this premise could actually have produced a great film, either in the screwball genre or not, on a couple brutally obliged to reconsider from scratch the assumptions and routines of its past relation - think something like Philadelphia Story. However it would have required brilliant screenwriting. That's far from what it got - instead of that, just a few scattered amusing scenes.