If there’s one thing Matthew Vaughn loves, it’s a spy story. From X-Men: First Class to Kingsman, his resume is dotted with films paying homage to the genre, and nowhere is his infatuation with espionage more apparent (to somewhat calamitous end) than in his latest flick, Argylle.
Following an introverted writer who miraculously begins to predict real-life espionage events in her books, Argylle’s entire premise hinges on one massive twist: Elly Conway is Agent Argylle. But while the Argylle/R Kyle reveal certainly makes for a memorable “WTF” moment, once you start to think critically about the implications of this story-in-a story, things fall apart, and quickly.
When we first meet Elly Conway/Rachel Kyle (Bryce Dallas Howard), it’s quickly revealed that she has ongoing fantasies of the protagonist of her book series, Agent Argylle (Henry Cavill), in her day-to-day life. Though initially he only appears when Elly is fantasizing about what to write in her next chapter, Argylle quickly becomes a much more prominent figure in Elly’s psyche when she meets real-life secret agent Aidan (Sam Rockwell).
Once Aidan is in the picture, Elly begins to project her fantasies of Agent Argylle onto him—in multiple fight scenes, we see shots of Henry Cavill intercut with Sam Rockwell, as if Elly imagines Aidan is Argylle. Imaginary-Argylle winks at Elly, flirts with her, and does all sort of showboat-y moves to impress her, which are intercut with Aidan doing the same moves IRL. At first, this simply feels like a fun, simple gimmick—after having fantasized about spies for years, of course Elly would think of Aidan as her real-life Argylle.
Aidan isn’t the only character with a fictional counterpart in Elly’s mind, either. The film’s opening sequence shows Cavill’s Argylle working alongside right-hand man Wyatt (John Cena) and tech genius Keira (Ariana DeBose). Just as Aidan seems to be a real-life version of Argylle, he also tells Elly that Wyatt and Keira a real people in the spy world, too—another element of her book series that eerily echoes reality.
At first, this story-in-a-story simply feels like a fun (if ludicrous) meta storytelling mechanic that gives some added reality-bending flavor to fight scenes … until the film’s real twist is revealed, and the entire metaphor gets murky. It turns out that Elly herself is Agent Argylle (or rather, agent Rachel Kyle—R. Kyle), and her seemingly prophetic books are simply her brain’s way of processing memory loss through writing.
Certainly, that twist by itself feels a little silly, but it also has some messy implications in regard to the previously-established story-in-a-story. Of course, if Elly is Agent Argylle, that means Aidan isn’t—and as revealed through flashback sequences, it turns out Aidan’s real-life counterpart is the John Cena character, Wyatt.
But if Elly, not Aidan, is Argylle, suddenly that flirty, swashbuckling fantasy version of Argylle makes a lot less sense. If all of the Argylle characters were remnants of her real-life memories, why did Argylle have Aidan’s personality quirks, and not the stone-cold serious persona Rachel Kyle did? If Elly was imagining Argylle flirting with her, and Elly is Argylle, does that mean Elly was dreaming about flirting with herself?
That, of course, isn’t even acknowledging yet another twist that asks more questions than it answers: the reveal that Rachel Kyle and Aidan were in a romantic relationship prior to Elly’s memory loss. If Aidan and Rachel were together in real life, why weren’t Wyatt and Agent Argylle together in Elly’s books? The film even ends with Elly and Aidan kissing as they make their escape via boat, which is intercut with a shot of Cena and Cavill in the same position on the same boat—except they very pointedly aren’t in the middle of a passionate embrace. If Elly is Argylle, and Aidan is Wyatt, Cena and Cavill should surely also have been lip-locking, right?
To the film’s credit, Argylle never makes any attempt to present itself as a “serious” spy flick—the ridiculous fight choreography, colorful set pieces, and ridiculous running gags make that very clear. But in its attempts to cook up an unpredictable twist that will confound audiences, Argylle ends up crafting a tangled mess of meta stories that make less and less sense the longer you think about them.
(featured image: Universal Pictures)
