Film / Argylle

"It's time for you to meet the real agent Argylle."

Elly: Who are these people?
Aiden: Real life spies.
Elly: Why would they care about me?
Aiden: Because you're a goddamn fortune teller, Elly. What you wrote in your new book actually happened and you kicked a hornet's nest you didn't even know existed.

Argylle is a 2024 American-British spy/romantic comedy/action film written by Jason Fuchs (Wonder Woman) and directed by Matthew Vaughn. It stars Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O'Hara, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson, Sofia Boutella, and Chip the Cat.

Elly Conway (Howard) is the reclusive (preferring the company of her cat Alfie) and mild-mannered author of a wildly popular series of novels about a dashing super-spy named Argylle (Cavill). When the events in her novels start mirroring real things, Elly's world gets turned upside down and she has to go on the run with the help of real-life spy Aiden Wilde (Rockwell), while a rogue organisation led by Director Ritter (Cranston) is determined to figure out what else Elly knows.

The film released in theaters February 2, 2024.

Previews: Teaser, Trailer

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Argylle contains examples of:

• 11th-Hour Ranger: Keira, an agent Elly worked with during her time as a spy, was initially presumed "killed in action" but turns out to be Not Quite Dead and appears just in time to save Elly and Aiden in the climax.
• Acoustic License: Elly turns Manchurian Agent so long as she hears a specific music box tune playing. Given they were on top of the deck of an oil tanker in the middle of the ocean, the wind that would be present pretty much guarantees there's no way anyone would be able to hear it at any distance.
• Advertising by Association: The teaser declares that the film is "From the twisted mind of Matthew Vaughn, director of Kingsman and Kick-Ass".
• Ambiguous Situation: The last scene has Elly performing a public reading of the last Argylle novel, then members of the audience can ask her questions; one of them has the same face as Argylle (he's also played by Henry Cavill) and Elly is baffled once she notices him. Cue end credits. Is Elly having another of those Argylle hallucinations (though the man didn't have the distinctive Argylle's suit and haircut)? Is he just a random stranger who happened to uncannily look like how Elly imagined Argylle? Is he another enemy secret agent? Is he the actor playing Argylle in the film adaptation of Elly's book revealed in The Stinger? Or is Agent Argylle real after all?
• Amnesiac Dissonance:
  • In contrast to her real identity of Rachel Kylle, an Action Girl who was "the best of the best" in the CIA and Division, as amnesiac Elly Conway, she reacts exactly the way you'd expect any normal person with no combat experience to respond when a bunch of assassins come after her and Aiden brutally kills them in front of her: lots of screaming, cowering, trying to run away, and reluctance to get involved in violence herself. Just compare this to when Rachel gets her memories back and mows down scores of mooks with ease.
  • On a less serious note, Elly's closest and dearest companion is her cat, Alfie. Aiden, who's allergic to them, complains to her after The Reveal of her real identity that Rachel didn't even like cats and was "a dog person." Even after Rachel's memories are restored, she keeps the trait of liking cats, or at least Alfie, and is still doting and protective over him, while Aiden accepts that Alfie's not going anywhere and has begun taking medication by the ending to manage the allergy.
• Amnesiac Resonance: In spite of the above, even after Elly's memories of her previous life as Rachel were suppressed by her brainwashing, they bubble to the surface in the form of "creative ideas" and "characters" that she brings to life in her Argylle book series. The adventures that Agent Argylle, Wyatt, and Keira have in her books come from the real adventures that Rachel, Aiden, and Keira had. She also instinctively reacts to Aiden trying to punch her and pins him to the ground without even thinking about it, which is what convinces her that he and (human) Alfie are telling the truth about her identity.
• Anachronistic Soundtrack: "Now and Then" by The Beatles is part of one character's returning memories from at least 5 years in the past, yet the song had only been released in November 2023 and the film in 2024 (with no indication that the movie takes place in the near future or any time besides the present day).
• And Starring: John Cena and Samuel L. Jackson get the "with" and "and" billing on the teaser’s cast list.
• Artistic License – Biology: Right before a gunfight, Aiden explains Elly she'll have to make sure the mooks are dead by stomping their head and crushing their skull, stating that the skull is "surprisingly brittle." In real life, the human skull is quite sturdy, and the danger of head blows comes primarily from the brain banging against the cranium.
• Artistic License – Physics: Elly realizes she can take out a bunch of mooks by attaching knives to her boots and skating along the oil-covered floor, letting her move much more gracefully while they can only slip and skid, based on her memories as an ice skater. In real life, this wouldn't happen, as ice skates are designed specifically for, well, ice, not metal surfaces covered in oil. If it were played with any realism, she'd have fallen flat on her face the instant she tried to skate. Still pretty cool though.
• Battle Couple: Rachel/Elly and Aiden were this before she was amnesiac and brainwashed, and become this again once her memories return.
• Big "NO!": Elly's reaction to Alfie (her cat) being dropped off a building in the teaser is an echoing "NO!"
• Booked Full of Mooks: Two shown in the trailer.
  • When Agent Argylle meets LaGrange in a nightclub, they dance until she reveals she knows exactly who he is. Everyone in the club, including the women, pull guns out and point them at him.
  • When Elly is taking a train to see her mother, Aiden sits down across from her. After taking time to chat, one man walks up and attempts to stick her with a hidden needle. When he fails, everyone else in the car attacks Aiden, with more coming from other cars.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The fan who sent Elly a suggestion regarding how Argylle's ally Kiera could have survived being shot is actually Keira herself; she sent the suggestion after surviving her real-life shot to the heart in the exact same way, and after never hearing back from Elly about it, realized she genuinely didn't remember the truth.
• Chekhov's Skill: Elly's skating experience plays a part in the final battle when she is able to use improvised skates to move over an oil-covered floor and mow down nearly a dozen knife-wielding Mooks.
• Covers Always Lie: One of the posters features all the characters standing in a V shape. The central character is Agent Argylle cradling Alfie (the cat), despite Argylle being an in-universe fictional character without much onscreen presence (though the in-universe Argylle franchise is integral to the plot) and Alfie being just the heroine's pet. Immediately next to Argylle are LaGrange (another in-universe fictional character, with very short onscreen presence) and Alfred Solomon (a real person with an important role in-story, but still without much scenes). Elly and Aiden, the actual main characters, are standing farther away and not in the central position. Wyatt, another fiction-only character, is closer to the center than the actual Big Bad (whose identity as such isn't even a mystery).
• Dance Battler: Nobody would have thought it possible to fight Guns Akimbo while doing the Whirleybird before the protagonists went and did it.
• Dance of Romance: Between Elly and Aiden. In the middle of a gunfight. With multicolored smoke bombs being set off and thrown all over the place. Proving both of them are Dance Battlers to the max.
• Dented Iron: By the time of the climax, Aiden has received a severe beating and a non-fatal shot to the chest but is still able to patch his wounds up and give a good account of himself in the final battle.
• Didn't See That Coming: Elly/Rachel's plan to send the master file to Alfie fails because she didn't know the Division updated their cybersecurity protocols in the five years she had been gone.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Ariana DeBose (Keira) performed in two songs of the soundtrack, a disco duet with Boy George in "Electric Energy" and solo in "Get Up And Start Again".
• Dropping the Bombshell: When telling Elly how spies shouldn't stick out like her Agent Argylle clearly does, Adrian remarks they should look like "everyone else in this car", revealing that everyone in the train car is a spy.
• Evil Brit: Margaret Vogler, who is posing as Elly/Rachel's mother Ruth, starts speaking with a British accent once her true nature is revealed.
• Eye Scream: Alfie attacks Ritter by delivering serious scratches to his face, which apparently damaged Ritter's eyes.
• Fake Defector: After learning that she was the one who murdered Bakunin, as well her myriad crimes detailed in the master file, Rachel seemingly abandons all her scruples and joins up with the Division for real. She tells Ritter to dispose of her cat because she remembers she hates cats, and then coldly guns down Aiden during his interrogation, convincing everyone that she really was Evil All Along and has remembered her true self. This is all a ploy to make the Division let down their guard while she secretly sends the master file to Alfie under the guise of helping them track him down. If it wasn't for additional cybersecurity protocols she hadn't anticipated, her plan would have gone off without a hitch.
• Fake–Real Turn: Elly's literary career began just as a means for Division to extract the location of the Master File from her subconscious. However, she turns out to actually be a talented writer and she becomes a widely popular and famous author on her own right. The ending shows that, even after she's remembered her real identity of Rachel, she still used her "Elly" persona to write the final Argylle book based on the film's adventures, which is a smash hit just like all the previous ones.
• Femme Fatale Spy: LaGrange, introduced in the beginning of the movie, is a deadly and seductive female spy targeted by Agent Argylle and Wyatt in one of Elly's books.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: The shootout in the Division's base in the climax has a scene where they burst several pipes, all of which begin leaking crude oil. A few minutes later, it's revealed the Division has a mobile base in the form of an oil tanker in the middle of the ocean.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Elly manages to put out her fifth book in what's implied to be incredibly short time after her fourth is published yet can't manage to even write half a scene past what she initially wrote when her mother insists on another chapter. Because what she's attempting to write didn't happen and everything she has written was based entirely off her repressed memories of actual events.
  • Ruth is remarkably upset that Elly ended her last book on a Cliffhanger, calling it a cop out and trying to insist she write just one more chapter to reveal if Argylle actually got the master file he was after. She works for the Division, which the Directorate is based on, and they want to know where the master file is.
  • Aiden remarking that Elly got basically everything right except Argylle's appearance, remarking how much someone like that would draw attention hints that she is the real Argylle.
  • Elly is shown speaking to a mental construct of Argylle multiple times, this hints at the fact that Elly herself is the real Agent Argylle.
  • Ruth looks thrown to hear Elly is on a train which makes sense as she wasn't expecting her to be traveling and likely isn't at their "home" in Chicago.
  • Carlos (the bearded Hispanic man who spoke at Elly's book reading) noticeably says to Elly and Aiden after cornering them in the train "Don't make me kill both of you." Because the Division, contrary to Aiden's belief, weren't going to kill her, they wanted to bring her back into the fold.
  • Checking out Bakunin's apartment, Elly finds odd burns marks under the wallpaper in a strange pattern. It turns out to be where the explosives went off when Rachel killing Bakunin set off his bombs.
  • Several times, Aiden gets upset or annoyed with Elly for not being helpful during fights, reacting realistically to everything that happens, and in the most extreme case, not stomping on and crushing the mooks' skulls to make sure they're dead. It seems quite unreasonable and harsh to expect an ordinary civilian to quickly pick up on and adjust to seeing people die and brutally killing them herself, but makes far more sense after learning that Elly is really Action Girl Rachel, and that she and Aiden were lovers. It hurts him to see the badass woman he fell in love with, whom he knows could kick these guys' asses into next week without batting an eyelid, being so helpless and defenseless in a fight.
  • Argylle is an unquestionably heroic character in Elly's books, opposing the villainous Directorate. Since he's her subconscious projection of the real Rachel, of course it turns out that she isn't really evil, despite what her more ruthless actions may suggest.
  • When Aiden and Ellie first work together to decipher Bakunin's clues, in Elly's mental projection Aiden actually takes Wyatt's role rather than Argylle's because he actually is Elly's partner and she is the real Argylle.
• Genre Throwback: Matthew Vaughn has described Argylle as his ode to classic action films from the 1980s, such as Die Hard and Lethal Weapon (1987). According to some, Sam Rockwell's character Aiden Wilde evokes the character of Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas) from Romancing the Stone.
• Hollywood Density: Argylle pays for information on the Master File with three gold bars in a suit case, which would weigh ninety kilograms (or just under two hundred pounds) but apparently carried it to his information exchange with no problem.
• Hollywood Healing: Aiden takes a wound that looks instantly lethal but is theoretically survivable given treatment, and then manages to be fit to fight given a few minutes of self-applied first aid.
• Homage Shot: The shot of the Division mooks standing outside the armory waiting for Elly and Aiden to come out of it and getting smoke bombs thrown at them by the two heroes is staged the very same way as Richmond Valentine's mooks doing the same against Eggsy in Kingsman: The Secret Service. Moreover, the bright colors of the smoke bombs recall the bright colored explosions of heads in the same film.
• Hope Spot: Ritter offers one to his Deputy Director in his opening scene. At first he appears like he's going to shoot the man with Clementine, but puts the gun over his should and laughs it off, only to turn around and shoot the man anyway.
• I Call Her "Vera": Ritter has a rifle in his office that he refers to as "Clementine", and he prepares to use it against Elly and Aiden near the end.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Ruth activates Elly’s brainwashing trigger and forces her to fight Aiden, he tries to get through to her and eventually refuses to fight back altogether.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Is it possible for someone to be shot center mass in such a way that the bullet does not damage any major veins, arteries or organs? Probably. It's unlikely that someone would be able to make that shot on purpose, especially given that Elly hadn't handled a gun in years. Aiden himself actually lampshades this in the third act of the movie.
• Ironic Echo: Fairly early in the movie, Aiden gives Elly advice on how to stomp on a man's skull properly, likening it to dancing as he tells her to "twist and crush". In the Final Battle, he once more gives the same advice but much more somberly to Elly/Rachel when she's in Manchurian Agent mode and about to kill him because he can't bear to fight back against her.
• Let's Duet: "Electric Energy" from the soundtrack, with Boy George and Ariana DeBose at the singing and Nile Rodgers at the instrumentals.
• Lighter and Softer: As a Tuxedo and Martini spy film by Matthew Vaughn, there's less blood, gore, sex talk and swearing than in his Kingsman films (to the point it's rated PG-13 instead of R).
• Literal Metaphor: While writing the final chapter of book 5, Elly has Argylle's narration say that information on the Master File is worth its weight in gold… while the action on-screen shows that he is paying for it with a suitcase containing three enormous gold bars.
• Logo Joke: In the main trailer, the Universal, Apple, and MARV logos are rendered in gold.
• Loophole Abuse: Guns are not permitted within the Keeper of Secrets' home, but putting sleeping pills in tea is.
• MacGuffin Super-Person: As laid on in the trailer, Elly somehow predicted several real world spy missions in her book, and now a group led by Ritter wants her for her ability. Until it's revealed that the real-world missions in question happened five years ago, she's actually remembering them, and what they really want is a debrief of what happened at the end of "Argylle's" last mission.
• Manchurian Agent: The brainwashing Rachel/Elly was subjected to also included trigger words and a trigger music box's tune to control her, which Ruth uses in the climax to try having Rachel kill Aiden.
• Meta Twist: Henry Cavill having top-billing on the posters, and the movie being named after his character implies that, somehow, Agent Argylle is a real person. The plot twist is that Argylle is an unconscious expy of Elly prior her amnesia and brainwashing. His name is in the title because the in-universe novels named after him are central to the film's plot and the big reveal.
• Mistaken for Junkie: As Elly describes what she just lived through with Aiden to her mother, her mom asks if she's been experimenting with drugs.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: Rachel has just revealed to Ritter that she is actually against the Division and has just sent Alfie everything he needs to bring them down... and then it turns out that the Division have added security protocols that prevented Rachel sending everything to Alfie as she intended, so she's just exposed her true agenda in the heart of enemy territory.
• No Escape but Down: After finding Bakunin's notebook, Aiden and Elly have no choice but to escape by jumping from the roof of the building onto a barge. To demonstrate the safety of the jump, Aiden throws poor Alfie first.
• Not Quite Dead: Aiden in the climax due to Elly intentionally missing shooting him in the heart by a few centimetres, also Keira who gave her the idea in the first place.
• One-Man Army: Both Aiden and later Elly/Rachel Kylle are shown to be more than capable of singlehandedly carving their way through dozens of enemies.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Elly overhears Aiden state that "Elly Conway needs a bullet to the head" and assumes the worst. He actually means he hates her fake personality as he was in love with her real self, Rachel Kylle.
• Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo: Attempted. When Vogler pours Aiden and Elly some tea in Arabia, Aiden pointedly swaps cups with her then insists she drink first. Unfortunately, all three cups are drugged.
• Poor Communication Kills: When they are at the London motel, Elly accidentally hears Aiden telling someone on the phone that he's irritated with Elly and even wishes he could shoot her down. Elly naturally takes it as a threat and leaves - not knowing that Aiden was simply expressing his frustration because he's in love with Rachel, Elly's real identity, and dislikes how Elly is so different from her.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • The fade-cut transition from Argylle's lips to Elly's lips as she's reading from her latest book serves as the first transition into the real world. It takes on a different light when you know that she's actually Argylle. She's not just reading a book, she's narrating her own life.
  • During the first combat scene, Elly keeps hallucinating Aiden as Argylle. Throughout the whole scene, the pattern of these hallucinations is Argylle's performance in the fight is better than Aiden, who doesn't lose but the bad guys get a few hits in while they never do with Argylle. This is because Elly's suppressed memories as Rachel Kylle, who Aiden admits is a better fighter than he is, are resurfacing, and she's remembering the way she would likely have fought.
• Rule of Cool: Pretty much the only reason Rachel can ice-skate on a floor covered in crude oil by stabbing knives into her boots, tackle several much larger mercenaries without losing any momentum, and then shoot all the survivors without the hot shell casings igniting the oil covered floor. Absolutely none of it would work in real life but it looks awesome.
• Sarcastic Confession: Aiden admits to being a spy when he first meets Elly, something she doesn't believe at first.
• Secret Test of Character: Ritter offers one to Rachel near the end, offering to give her back her cat if he helps her find Alfie the human. She tells him to do whatever he wants with the cat, insisting she hates them, which convinces Ritter that she really is back to being Rachel.
• Shared Universe: From The Stinger, the in-universe movie Argylle: Book One appears to share a universe with the Kingsman franchise. What this means for the "real" Argylle universe is unclear, though there's a clue implying there may be a connection as well (the Stateman brand of alcohol exists).
• Shoe Phone: The first enemy spy who comes for Elly passes as a fan of her books and has a shiv springing out of a pen. He's quickly neutralized by Aiden.
• Shout-Out:
  • Bakunin mentions Darth Vader is like Mary Poppins when compared to the Division.
  • When Aiden urges Elly to write the next chapter to her novel, he says it does not have to be long like War and Peace.
  • Self-referential for Matthew Vaughn. During their visit to Hyde Park, Elly and Aiden are seen with a can of "Statesman" brand beer. The Stinger takes place in a pub named "The King's Man", complete with the Kingsman symbol.
• Show Within a Show: The film is about the Argylle novels, which inexplicably parallel real secret agent operations, which draws the attention of real spies. The protagonist Elly is the novels' author, and the film features a few sequences which are scenes from the books (in context, either because Elly is writing them, making a public reading or hallucinating).
• Slippery Skid: A gunfight in a pumping station results in an oil slick covering the entire floor, ensuring that nobody on either side has good footing. Elly attaches knives to her boots and somehow manages to "ice" skate on the crude oil, allowing her to keep fighting while everyone else can barely stand up.
• Something Only They Would Say: Elly convinces Ritter that she's back to being the Rachel Kylle who worked for him by dismissively saying he could "do whatever he wants" with her cat when he holds it hostage. As Rachel was known for hating cats unlike Kindhearted Cat Lover Elly, he's fully convinced. It's later revealed she was bluffing.
• Stealth Pun: The first of the film's many plot twists happens almost immediately after the cat is quite literally taken out of its bag for the first time since the film started.
• The Stinger: The mid-credits scene sees a young Argylle (played by Louis Partridge) in a teaser for a prequel film based on the first Argylle novel, titled "Argylle: Book One".
• Tick Tock Tune: A quick-paced ticking can be heard in the score to the trailer.
• Tomato in the Mirror: "Elly Conway" isn't real. She's a brainwashed former agent whose real name is Rachel Kylle, and the Argylle books are based on her subconscious memories of being a real super-spy.
• Villain Respect: One Division agent tells off another for disparaging Aiden, insisting the man was a legend.
• Visual Pun: Elly's cat Alfie in the cat bagpack she put him in. The expression "Don't let the cat out of the bag" (means "don't reveal secrets carelessly or by mistake") has been used aplenty in the marketing.
• Walking Spoiler: Most of the cast arguably qualifies as this, due to the sheer number of plot twists occurring one after another. This especially applies for the protagonist Elly Conway however - The film's first act reveal that her fictional books predicts future events in real life barely scratches the surface of the actual plot.
• We Named the Monkey "Jack": Turns out Elly named her cat "Alfie" after her former leader from before she lost her memory.
• Wham Shot:
  • While meeting her parents at the hotel, Elly fears that whoever is knocking at the door is an enemy spy. The door opens to reveal the Director of the Division, whom she greets as her father.
  • The reveal of "the real Agent Argylle" happening when Solomon shows Elly a computer file containing her image along with the name "Rachel Kylle", with the abbreviation (Agent R. Kylle) being used along with her old memories of her espionage work to create the Argylle character and his stories.
  • When Elly reviews the contents of the master file, she's horrified to find that her own crimes are listed there. She's then cornered by Ruth and forced to remember that she'd actually murdered the hacker after he'd given her the master file's coordinates, leading to her injury when he activated a Dead Man's Switch. Her ruthlessness also made Ruth and Ritter believe that she truly was a loyal Division agent, and they actually planned to reinstate her instead of dispose of her as Aiden believed.
  • The reveal of the real real Agent Argylle who appears at the book signing for the final Argylle novel. played by Henry Cavill with a strong accent and different silly hair
  Argylle: I don't actually have a question, but I thought you might have some for me.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Elly is asked this about her characters after reading the final Argylle novel, and she answers it about their real counterparts: Alfie got his professional reputation back and a commendation, Keira started making and selling gadgets for the civilian market, and wherever Argylle and Wyatt are, they're together.
• Willfully Weak: During his I Know Youre In There Somewhere fight with Elly, Aiden pulls his punches and eventually refuses to fight back altogether.
• Wink "Ding!": The teaser ends with the cat, safe in its carrier, winking at the viewer with an audible ding.
• Wish-Fulfillment: Not explicitly stated, but in a similar vein to Matthew Vaughn's Kingsman: The Secret Service, the movie plays out like a cat-lady's fantasy dream from start to end: A single woman in a not-so-exciting life was suddenly dragged into a completely new situation by the actions of a new badass love interest, who told her she's capable of being much more than she thought of herself. When finally acknowledging her true calling, she Took a Level in Badass and start accomplishing amazing feats she previously did not believe she could accomplish.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Aiden puts the two female mooks on the train into sleeper holds rather than kill them, unlike all the other mooks.
• Your Makeup Is Running: In the aftermath of discovering her parents aren't as innocent as she thought, Elly cries so much her mascara is seen running.

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♫ We can't go on together with suspicious minds... ♫