The Spy Who Loved Books
Apprehending Argylle as a film object is far from an easy task, whether in terms of its quality or its nature. In fact, one wonders if the treasure hunt launched by Matthew Vaughn, Universal, and Apple is not more interesting than the film itself. Originally presented as an adaptation of an espionage novel by the unknown Elly Conway (for which Vaughn would have jumped on the rights after reading the manuscript), the feature film is actually a mise en abyme of said novel, apparently published to blur the lines between reality and fiction.
If Argylle (the book) tells the adventures of the eponymous character in yet another James Bond-style spy story, Argylle (the film) imagines how Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard), accompanied by her faithful cat, finds herself unintentionally pursued by real secret agents because of her books. A rather amusing premise and consistent with the rest of Vaughn’s filmography, made up of everyday life thrust into pop imaginations.
Here in Paris, we love Matthew Vaughn! This is what is fascinating about the filmmaker: the virtuosity of his direction is focused on the notion of fusion. Beyond the styles and genres that he enjoys mixing, his work with digital tools seeks only assimilation, the deliberately cartoonish clash of his layers and shots to give the illusion of a devilishly continuous continuity – best symbolized by the long shots of the Kingsman. More than ever, Argylle embraces this artificiality. From its opening scene, in which Henry Cavill, dressed in a striking toilet brush, chases Dua Lipa through a Greek street, breaking as many CGI houses as possible along the way. The visual effects are eye-catching, but one is almost tempted to see (for once) something other than incompetence. Vaughn has always been able to use his VFX with an inventiveness that transcends their dubious photorealism, especially in his improbable camera movements.
Fun prevails over the rest, and initially, we are ready to embark joyfully on this fantasy drawn from Conway’s lines. In fact, Argylle is at its best during a writing session, where the author’s page and words merge with the situation depicted, as if a literary matrix were emerging around the characters.
Unfortunately, Vaughn never manages to exceed this exciting promise. While his newborn gave the impression of being a mega best-of, it quickly shows the limits of a formula at the end of the line. By constantly revolving around the notion of the lies and pretenses inherent in the world of espionage, Jason Fuchs’ screenplay indulges in the establishment of its elements, to the point of implementing a very literal Chekhov’s gun around the villainous head of the Agency (Bryan Cranston, whom one would have wished more hammy). Argylle wants to be dissected, to be analyzed for its structure and its initial respect for genre codes.
The difference ultimately lies in the director’s desire for immersion, which until now advocated a form of permanent transition of his characters to another world, like a rabbit hole that you would never see the bottom of.
On the other hand, his multi-layered film assumes from the outset the inevitable presence of a twist, which he keeps in his hat in a very mechanical way. Certainly, the revelation is as surprising as it is pleasing in the direction it takes, but it awakens too late the pulp dimension expected from such a spectacle. So there are indeed two films in Argylle: the first half is quite painful in its adventures and its script setups, and the second one is more fun and liberated. This little admission of failure, while not the most dramatic, summarises our disappointment. Rather than relying on his usual art of fusion, Matthew Vaughn relies on the motif of scission, both visually and narratively.
We realize this through the main stylistic effect of the feature film: in the face of her past traumas, Elly fantasizes about the character of Argylle (Cavill) and mixes him with the real spy who comes to save her life (Sam Rockwell). In action scenes, every transition is good for switching from one body to the other, to the point of becoming tedious despite the inventiveness of some choreographies.
Even though the director still plays around with unlikely morphing and smooth transitions from one scene to another, the heterogeneity of his film prevails and marks the multiple jolts of its laborious progression. As a result, technical indulgence in favor of creativity is no longer as obvious, especially as Argylle regularly undermines its best ideas with visually unappealing and meager effects for a blockbuster of this caliber. It is therefore difficult to approach this bastard project without being torn between two extremes.
After all, apart from its too cute cat (at least when it’s not done in ugly CGI), the film has an obvious charm, supported by a five-star cast that seems to have fun in Vaughn’s artificial universe (Sam Rockwell obviously stands out in the field, while one would have liked to see Samuel L. Jackson and John Cena more present). After the tumble of the Kingsman saga, we just hope that Argylle does not symbolize the continued fall of a likable director.
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