‘Argylle’ review: Dua Lipa and Henry Cavill’s stranger than fiction spy caper

When Argylle was announced in July 2021, it was said to be based on an upcoming spy novel by a previously unknown author called Elly Conway. Director Matthew Vaughn, maker of the Kingsman movies, hailed Conway’s novel as the beginning of “the most incredible and original spy franchise since Ian Fleming’s [Bond] books of the ’50s”.

Penguin Books later launched an author page for the mysterious writer, which revealed only that she lives “somewhere in the United States”. Vaughn has since insisted that Conway, who is played in his film by Bryce Dallas Howard, is absolutely a real person. Sadly, he also dismissed an outlandish but not totally implausible fan theory that Elly Conway is a pen name for Taylor Swift. Well, both Howard’s Argylle heroine and T-Swizzle have a fondness for carrying their cats around in backpacks.

It’s tricky to say too much more about Vaughn’s spy romp without wading into a minefield of spoilers. The ingenious screenplay by Jason Fuchs (Wonder Woman) features more twists and turns than the Monaco Grand Prix. So, let’s tread carefully. The film begins with Howard’s successful but reclusive writer struggling with the ending of her latest Argylle novel. In ‘film within a film’ scenes, we see Conway’s macho secret agent (Henry Cavill) squaring up on the dance floor against a glamorous assassin played by Dua Lipa. If their interactions are a little stiff, it’s perhaps – hopefully – a send-up of the often pulpy spy genre.

When Conway catches a train to visit her supportive mother (Catherine O’Hara), her journey is interrupted by Aidan (Sam Rockwell), a scruffy undercover spy who tells her she’s in grave danger because her books appear to be predicting the movements of a real-life spy syndicate. At this point, Vaughn’s film really starts piling on its wrongfooting – and often very funny – plot twists.

Argylle also features some scintillating fight scenes set to seemingly incongruous pop songs, which is a bit of a Vaughn signature. Remember Colin Firth going postal to Elton John‘s ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’ in Kingsman: The Golden Circle? Here, there’s a deliciously tongue-in-cheek set piece soundtracked by Leona Lewis‘s cover of Snow Patrol‘s ‘Run’. If the film takes off, Lewis’ power ballad could get a ‘Murder On The Dancefloor‘ moment.

There’s plenty more to enjoy here, including Howard’s cleverly layered performance and Bryan Cranston’s witty villain Ritter, but Argylle is hampered by strange pacing and a bloated 139-minute runtime. Because it takes too long to become truly gripping, it ends up overstaying its welcome during the last few big reveals. Still, there’s no denying it contains enough intrigue to launch the franchise that Vaughn is already planning. Or that Elly Conway – whoever she may be – has a really wild imagination.

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