Spoiler Space: Let’s talk about that Argylle twist

Spoiler Space offers thoughts on, and a place to discuss, the plot points we can’t disclose in our official review. Fair warning: This piece discusses certain surprises that will spoil Argylle for those who haven’t seen it.

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Before we get into the spoilers, let’s spare a moment to think of the poor marketing team tasked with selling Argylle to the public, for theirs was not an easy task. We can’t even discuss the film fully without revealing some of the surprises, so we get that it might have been a challenge to promote in a way that lets people know what they’re in for while keeping certain things under wraps. Ever since the first trailer advised viewers not to “let the cat out of the bag” once they knew the “secret,” there’s been plenty of speculation about the identity of Argylle. We don’t blame whoever it was that came up with the idea of making it seem like the titular super spy might be a literal cat. It’s not their fault that it happens to be a much more interesting twist than the one that’s actually in the movie.

Now that Argylle is in theaters and audiences have had a chance to see it, we thought we’d talk about not only that twist but all the other insane things that happen in the film. If you’ve read this far you probably fall into one of two camps: either you’ve already seen the movie and know by now that Agent Argylle isn’t, in fact, the cat, or you haven’t and didn’t know that, but you don’t care whether it spoils anything. Sometimes you’ve just gotta satisfy your cat-like curiosity, and we respect that.

As for Argylle’s identity, if you predicted that Elly (Bryce Dallas Howard) would be a victim of some fancy brainwashing technique to make her forget her former life of espionage, not to mention her entire personality, you might also be a super spy. Because who could see that coming? The more you think about it, the less it makes sense. And the more likely it is that you’ve thought about it more than writer Jason Fuchs or director Matthew Vaughn (or even the pseudonymous author of the novel it’s based on, who is definitely not Taylor Swift). Argylle has some fun moments, and the first half or so is enjoyable, but when a whole film is built upon an ultimately unsuccessful twist, the whole thing collapses like a house of cards.

One of the big reasons the twist doesn’t work comes down to Howard herself. It’s not her fault she was miscast in a challenging dual role. She’s lovely as meek, introverted Elly Conway, who just wants to be alone in her lake house with her cat and her fictional (or so she thinks) characters. It’s when she has to flip the switch and become hardass double agent (or triple agent? It’s hard to keep track) Rachel Kyle that things get dicey. It’s never convincing. She also has more romantic chemistry with Sam Rockwell’s Aidan when she’s in Elly mode, in spite of the fact that it’s Rachel who’s supposed to be his real love interest. You can’t just put a gun in someone’s hand, some curse words in their mouth, dress them up in a blonde wig and a slinky, low-cut dress and expect us to buy them as a steely action hero. It takes a physicality and an attitude to pull off the kind of balletic action scenes Vaughn loves to stage, and Howard unfortunately makes it look like a lot of hard work.

Howard’s limitations aren’t the only problem with the twist, though. From a narrative standpoint, it makes zero sense. Even if we can accept that such an elaborate brainwashing scheme would actually work, and considering that spy films often rely on the fantastical that’s not too tough an ask, the plan has some major flaws. Why would Ritter (Bryan Cranston) and Catherine O’Hara’s evil psychologist (who is British? for some reason?) go to the trouble of creating this elaborate fabrication of a life in order to get Rachel, as Elly, to write the final chapter of a five-book series, as a long con to find out the location of the MacGuffin File (that’s what we’re calling it anyway)? Wouldn’t it have been much easier to preserve her identity, gain her trust, and get her to tell them literally any other way? She thought they were her parents! She would have just told them if they’d asked.

Instead, they encourage her to reveal their secrets to the world in the Argylle novels. Which turn out to be instant bestsellers, because in addition to being an elite spy, Rachel Kyle apparently also has what it takes to become a successful writer. It’s just that easy. Of course, to most readers they’re pure fiction, but it seems like a serious security breach for a community that relies on keeping secrets to let them out there into the public in any form. Especially if they all read Elly’s books, as the script repeatedly reminds us they do. The only reason for it to play out like it does is that the movie really wants her to be a bestselling author at the beginning. That’s it.

If the twist were handled better, Argylle might be able to sustain some of the other flights of fancy and lapses in logic that threaten to bring it down. We might be able to forgive the fact that Dua Lipa dies in the first five minutes, or that Henry Cavill (Rachel’s fictional alter ego) and John Cena (Aidan’s fictional alter ego) don’t get anything close to the relationship Rachel and Aidan have (let them kiss!), or that it criminally wastes actors like Ariana DeBose and Samuel L. Jackson, who was paid to basically sit at a desk and watch Laker games. They couldn’t even get the CGI cat right. Which really should have been the first tip-off that it was never going to be about the cat. We can only hope someone actually does make that movie someday.