The new action comedy Argylle is getting as much buzz for its endless twists as it is for its suspected connection to Taylor Swift. Many Swifties believe that their goddess is secretly the author of the unpublished, possibly nonexistent book that the movie is based on. However, little is known about the film’s actual content. Does anyone know what it’s really about, besides that it’s a buddy comedy co-starring an uncanny valley CGI cat?
We’re here to help. Argylle, like many movies before it, is about a loveable writer who finds herself out of her element. Of course, that’s not hard for writers – famously introverted – to do. But in this film, she also happens to find herself at the center of a worldwide conspiracy based on the characters in her novel. You might consider checking it out if you’re a lover of twists, Bryce Dallas Howard, or Dua Lipa (who guest stars). And after that, you might want to watch a few more movies featuring hapless writers. Here are some of the best.
‘Almost Famous’
This 2000 cult classic features Academy Award-nominated performances from Kate Hudson and Frances McDormand, but the character at the center of it is an ambitious, fresh-faced music journalist who inadvertently becomes a groupie while working on a feature story for Rolling Stone. As the teen tours with a band and witnesses firsthand the drugs, sex, and rock and roll of the 1970s, he grows up — and gets a great story out of it.
‘Midnight in Paris’
Like many writers, Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) takes to Paris like a pen to paper, fascinated by its romantic architecture and inhabitants. Ignoring the fact that Woody Allen directed this movie, it’s impossible not to be swept up by Pender’s adventures as he wanders through town and accidentally steps back in time. After he meets brilliant writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, he finds the inspiration he so desperately needs.
‘Misery’
If you loved Kathy Bates in American Horror Story, then you’ll adore her in this equally terrifying 1990 horror flick based on a Stephen King novel. Bates won an Oscar for her creepy, distressing performance as an obsessed stan of the writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan) – and for good reason. As she kidnaps Sheldon and tortures him so that he’ll finish his latest novel, you begin to understand the phrase “suffer for one’s art.”
‘Adaptation’
There’s nothing more meta than a writer writing a movie about himself writing a movie. Got all that? Yes, it’s true. The screenwriter of Adaptation, Charlie Kaufman, made himself the main character of this film – and in it, the film version of him is working on a screenplay that adapts the book The Orchid Thief. And if that isn’t enough of a head-scratcher, Nicolas Cage plays Kaufman – as well as his twin brother. In any case, this is an absolutely bonkers, sometimes hilarious film, and it also co-stars Meryl Streep for bonus points.
‘Her’
How do you make a movie about a man falling in love with AI believable? You make that man a writer. Those people are always lonely and awkward, after all (or at least in Hollywood they are). But we digress. Like Adaptation, Her is directed by Spike Jonze, and like Adaptation, the 2013 film features a writer as its protagonist. At the beginning of the movie, Theodore Twombly – played by Joaquin Phoenix, and yes, that is really the character’s name – works as a ghostwriter for people who have trouble writing sentimental letters to their loved ones. After he meets a seductive AI with the voice of Scarlett Johansson, he falls in love – and he never even has to talk to a real human first. A writer’s dream!
‘The Ghost Writer’
This underrated 2010 thriller stars Ewan McGregor as a handsome, successful writer who gets tangled up in drama after signing up to ghostwrite for a former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan). As McGregor’s character learns more and more about his subject, he also bites off a bit more than he can chew. The result is a complex web of lies, betrayals, and illicit affairs.
‘Capote‘
Perhaps less of a “writer wades into dangerous territory” plot and more of a straightforward biography, Capote is nevertheless about the famed writer Truman Capote. This film, which won Philip Seymour Hoffman an Academy Award for his genius portrayal of Capote, follows the author as he investigates a crime that will later anchor his famous book In Cold Blood. Capote is a fascinating case study full of Easter eggs for literature nerds, including a secondary arc featuring the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee.
