There is one thing that becomes clear when looking at the films directed by Matthew Vaughn. The director’s disproportionate love for his characters and for his shared worlds, which are increasingly colliding with each other, from film to film. Superheroes who are often superspies and who demonstrate the director’s passion for literature starting from Ian Fleming’s James Bond. At the same time that imagery gives spy story from other times he wanted to update it and also overturn it, as if we were in a detective story and therefore there was a whodunnit to start with the viewer.
This is very clear in ArgyleIndeed, it is the central and peculiar element that could win you over to watch it, if you allow it. Among the platforms that distribute films in streaming after their release in theaters there is indeed Apple TV+, in this case also a producer. AND Argyle is the example: let’s find out why the film offers users one of the most interesting – and “biggest” – spy stories seen recently.
Lying spy
“The bigger the spy, the bigger the lie”. So it said claim of the film (read the review) and the phrase, in addition to being very catchy and commercial, summarizes the concept behind the film very well. There plot in fact it seems simple but is actually anything but linear: Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a solitary cat lover (she has one that she always carries with her in a backpack with a porthole, Alfie, played by Chip, Claudia Schiffer’s cat, Vaughn’s wife in real life). She is also a best-selling author of spy novels starring the titular character, Argylle (an exaggeratedly and deliberately hyper-charming Henry Cavill), a secret agent always on a mission to unmask an evil spy cartel.
When Elly, with the help of Aidan (Sam Rockwell), who is allergic to cats, finds herself entangled in something much bigger than herself, a dangerous cat and mouse game. Not just that of the two unlikely protagonists with the rest of the stellar cast which embellishes the film – John Cena, Ariana DeBose, Richard E. Grant, Dua Lipa, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Sofia Boutella, Samuel L. Jackson. But also that between the magic show (to quote The Prestige) that the director was able to construct on the screen and the audience in their seats.
Never trust anyone
If there is one thing that Argylle – The Super Spy teaches the spectator, already reaching the end of the first act, it is to never trust anyone. Not even the director’s. Matthew Vaughn in fact, together with the screenwriter Jason Fuchs, wanted to set up a real chess game with the spectator, which must therefore be played with strategy, predicting the opponent’s moves well in advance. In this case, predicting his thoughts and ideas about what he is seeing on the screen and how the plot will unfold.
Fuchs & Vaughn have in fact inserted a sequence of never-ending twists and turns, literally until the last scene of the film, precisely to always keep the audience’s attention high, continually overturning what they were convinced they had understood up to that moment, and therefore continuously playing with it. He also does so through a series of directorial and musical choices – on the occasion ofcoming streaminga new version of Electric Energy by Ariana DeBose is re-imagined by K-pop superstars The Boyz – once again denoting the director’s deep love for staging his magic trick in the seventh art.
Guide to recognizing the Kingsman: from Secret Service to Argylle, the chronology of Matthew Vaughn’s films
(Deliberately) fake promotion
If just like in one story of spiesyou can’t trust anyone, it all started from promotional campaign Of Argyle. The stellar cast that stands out on the poster will not have the prominence that one might initially think, and it is precisely with themeta-television element that Vaughn enjoys, like a child with a newly received toy to try out and use with creativity. Who knows if this latest cinematic effort – literally, who knows if and how this shared universe of spies will continue – will have a second and best life streaming, as has already happened to other titles, especially on Disney+, compared to the theatrical release which did not obtain the revenue and attention hoped for. But this doesn’t stop the director from thinking big and looking three moves ahead, given that he too has now become a secret agent. However, “The bigger the director, the bigger the lie”.
