This is an enjoyable, meta, action film, written by Jason Fuchs and directed by Matthew Vaughan, which doesn’t take itself too seriously. Argylle has divided audiences and critics – it gets much higher approval ratings from audiences. Bryce Dallas Howard plays spy novelist Elly Conway and Henry Cavill plays her creation ‘Agent Argylle’. Sam Rockwell is great as the ‘real spy’ who takes Elly on a journey through her last book.

The film opens with a Bond parody where Cavill’s character drives over the rooftops of a Greek town destroying houses, raining down architectural bric-a-brac onto disapproving locals. Henry Cavill and John Cena represent the Hollywood side of this tale, all slick and action-manlike, while the ‘real life’ characters are played by Rockwell and Howard, with him looking dishevelled and her a more real-life woman than your usual model female kick-ass spy.

That’s unusual in Hollywood films. Bryce is what’s called a ‘non-sample-size’ woman (i.e. she is a UK size 10, whereas Hollywood films generally star women who are a UK size 4 and under). Bryce has discussed this problem with Hollywood before, saying it’s difficult for actresses – who become fatigued trying to maintain such a small size. Before filming, she said to British Director Vaughn that she wasn’t prepared to lose weight for the part, and he told her he was hiring her for herself and didn’t require her to lose weight.

Argylle is a nicely-paced comedy with twists and turns, charting the adventures of a writer meeting, and playing, her own characters.

Ailie Hunter
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