Get Smart

Get Smart is a film released in 2008, directed by Peter Segal, that stars Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway as the main characters. The plot of the story is that an organization named KAOS has accrued a stockpile of nuclear weapons and is threatening to use them if their demands for money aren't met. CONTROL, the organization know for always messing up KAOS' plans, has just had their headquarters sabotaged and now all of their agents have had their identity compromised, except for one, agent 99. Not having any other options, CONTROL promotes one of their best data analyst to an agent, this man is Maxwell Smart. With a nuclear bomb threat looming above CONTROL has to send out the only two agents they have left in hopes of neutralizing this threat. The film was received with mixed reviews. Critics thought that there was too much action and it took away from the comedy. However, Get Smart does show an interpersonal relationship develop between Max and agent 99 very well. Get Smart illustrates Devito's principals of conflict, conversational disclosure, and relationship stages in an interpersonal relationship.

Get Smart does a good job of illustrating some of the principles of conflict in an interpersonal relationship. There are many scenes in Get Smart in which Max and agent 99 don't quite see eye to eye. In fact, their relationship started out rocky from the get go. The first time Max gets to meet agent 99 is right after the control headquarters has been destroyed. Right after they exchange their names they hear footsteps coming down the hall by them. As Max and agent 99 hide and wait for their mysterious footsteps to arrive, Max conceives a plan to distract the group of people in the hallway using a water hose. Agent 99 strongly obje...

... middle of paper ...

...It is very believable that she would want to keep that kind of information hidden, and it is easy to tell that their relationship has developed greatly when she tells Max about it. Overall, Get Smart is an enjoyable movie that I enjoyed looking at deeper for this paper.

Works Cited

DeVito, Joseph A. The Interpersonal Communication Book. Boston, Mass: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2009. Print.

Get Smart. Dir. Peter Segal. Perf. Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway. Warner Bros., 2008. Film.

"Relationships, Stages Of Summary." BookRags.com. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. .

Vangelisti, Anita L., and Daniel Perlman. The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. Print.

Wood, Julia T. Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.