Brangelina And Me
Is Mr. and Mrs. Smith based on Doug Liman’s relationship history?
it’s hard to have a Hollywood marriage. Just ask Brad Pitt , who’s now incessantly linked with his Mr. and Mrs. Smith co-star Angelina Jolie . In the film, they play professional assassins who go to a marriage counselor to help them connect again (when they’re not trying to kill each other). At the June 2 after-party at the Garden of Ono at the Hotel Gansevoort, following a screening of the movie attended by Spike Lee , Kyle MacLachlan , and Bill Hemmer (there with Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom , whose marriage to Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, just ended), director Doug Liman sounded nearly Dr. Phil about his movie’s purpose. “I thought of this film as an opportunity to show how hard marriage is,” he says. But can you think of it as true to life? “You can. I thought of the violence as a metaphor for what happens in a marital spat. It’s a way of dramatizing it in a more fun and palpable manner. But in the end, it’s about a couple trying to work out their problems.” And they do, right? “They do it through rocket launchers and Gatling guns, but they do.”

EDITED BY CARL SWANSON

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
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