Hamlet on Mr. and Mrs. Smith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C1miwFdQOQ
The movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith - deals with the central issue of trust, but this notion is redefined for the context of a married couple made up of two world class assassins.How can we fully trust someone? If we’re living life as a play, we would like our record read nothing so that we can live in impromptu appropriateness and truly in the moment - honesty aside.
Hamlet [reflecting upon the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith]: What is it that has, for so long, kept me from finding one whom I can trust - trust more than anyone else in the world - trust more than myself in times of disposition? Clearly these two lovers have yet to find a similar comfort and, after so long, have yet to understand what it is that drives them so far apart. The Smith’s have, for their entire marriage, known nothing of each other - rather, in knowing seemingly everything they are bound to know nothing in that, by nature, their marriage has been all but a show. Temptations results from the “taints of liberty,” but loneliness can’t be solved with relations so deep - like John Smith said, “I guess that's what happens in the end, you start thinking about the beginning.” (2.1.36). My own mother and uncle have betrayed me so it seem blood has little value when it comes to trust, but I fear that my incestuous mother, like the Smiths, does not know who she is going to bed next to every night.
While Mr. and Mrs. Smith each let the other “ply his music,” this unknowingly admits that the two are in full understanding that there is information that they don’t know (2.1.81). What hypocrisy exists between a man’s expectations and his actions - I, a man of the stage and a man of mapped behavior and words, cannot allow myself to bestow the greatest of admiration in someone if I am not pure of heart enough to expect the same honesty that I provide. Although there is such a distance between the Smiths, the multi-faced nature of John Smith’s life is perfectly suited that “there is none living to whom he more adheres,” than Jane, his wife (2.2.20-21). So in this, should I expect to marry someone my equal - someone as blind to the horrors surrounding them yet so driven to meet a certain agenda? I can hardly imagine marrying my own mother, so this hardly will do. Like this wretched state to which I am bound, “there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so,” and perhaps a happy marriage is simple, is immediate, is fleeting; if I think it good, so be it, but If i think it tarnished, there must be a polish at hand (2.2.268-270). The Smiths find a marriage counselor - and a few hundred bullets - to serve as this polish, but here in the rotten state of Denmark, that which is not glimmering is even further tarnished, and I cannot see myself with a woman, be it Ophelia, and being satisfied with keeping myself from her. I may think, as my father very well had, that the act is up once I’m married, but as was said in Doug Liman’s film, “Happy endings are just stories that haven't finished yet;” hopefully this means for me that my inevitable struggles to overcome character removal are at least indicative of formerly happy times - but lo! Where are these? The daughter of “old Jephthah,” is a mocking wreck of my own lineage, but contrary to what I’ve told Polonius, I want to carry this out as best I can without “blowing my cover.” (2.2.444)
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