Don't trust anybody.
"There is no turning back for us. We're semi-professionals at this point. Professional. We are professional."
— Morgan
The Spy Who Dumped Me is a 2018 action buddy comedy film directed by Susanna Fogel and starring Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon.
Audrey (Kunis) finds out that the ex-boyfriend who dumped her through text, Drew (Justin Theroux), is actually a CIA agent. Drew is murdered while retrieving a fantasy football trophy containing a USB flash drive from Audrey, and gives her specific instructions to go to Vienna and hand over the trophy to his contact. Audrey's best friend and roommate Morgan (McKinnon) convinces her to go to Vienna, and the two become embroiled in an international race to gain the contents of the drive. Dodging brutal assassins and renowned criminals throughout Europe, their only ally seems to be MI6 agent Sebastian (Sam Heughan)... or is he?
Tropes:
- Action Hero: Henshaw is one in the James Bond/Jason Bourne "super spy" vein, effortlessly taking down multiple henchmen and pulling off numerous impressive feats.
- Action Survivor: Both Audrey and Morgan are untrained civilians, but manage to survive several deadly encounters with assassins and rogue agents purely through wit, savvy, and dumb luck.
- Actor Allusion:
- There's several references to Ukraine in the beginning of the movie - Mila Kunis really does hail from Ukraine.
- Morgan claiming to have auditioned for the role of an impoverished Ukrainian girl, which sounds more like Kate McKinnon's Olya Povlatsky character from Saturday Night Live.
- Gillian Anderson is the head of MI6 again.
- All Part of the Show: Morgan faces off against Nadedja during a trapeze show and manages to take her out. The audience gives her a standing ovation.
- Almost Famous Name: In-Universe; Morgan's last name is Freeman.Morgan: I can get a reservation anywhere I want.
- Badass Bystander: The tourist in the youth hostel saves the crew from Duffer by picking him up and smashing him to the ground, assuming he was a thief.
- Borrowed Biometric Bypass: Audrey saws off Duffer's thumb to gain continued access to his iPhone.
- Brick Joke: Morgan gets dick pics from Victor, and says several times that he's uncircumcised. Then Viktor appears completely naked, as if to confirm it.
- The Cameo: Jane Curtin and Paul Reiser appear as Morgan's parents.
- Chekhov's Gag: Morgan mentioning that Edward Snowden had a crush on her when they were kids.
- Companion Cube: Nadejda, raised from childhood as an assassin with the cover of being an Olympic gymnast, is emotionally attached to the balance beam.
- Concealment Equals Cover:
- Morgan and Audrey are forced to evade gunfire by hiding behind the trolley case they got at the airport. It was in America so bulletproof trolley cases are probably available for purchase, but it's still two grown women behind a trolley case.
- Subverted later when Sebastian breaks into an abandoned gym and tries this with one of those really dense gym mattresses. It's just not dense enough.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Morgan may appear to be just an actress whose career has never taken off, but she picked up a range of interesting contacts and skills over the years, allowing her to call Edward Snowden for help and perform on a complex trapeze display as part of an improvised cover.
- Dead All Along: Morgan's father's friend Roger was killed by Nadedja and replaced by a double.
- Destination Defenestration: Morgan kills Viktor by shoving him out a window.
- Disposable Pilot: Well, driver. During the Car Chase in Vienna, Audrey and Morgan's taxi driver gets shot by Mooks, forcing Audrey to take the wheel.
- Driving Stick: Morgan and Audrey try to steal a car in Vienna, but give up shortly after because neither of them can drive stick.
- Facial Horror: Relatively minor, but after Morgan kicks a grenade back at her, Nadedja is left with distinctive burns on the left side of her face.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: A quick pause when Duffer's emails are on screen shows that he even signs his black-market emails with "Harvard '11".
- Full-Frontal Assault: Viktor, the assassin from the beginning of the film, shows up butt-naked to Audrey and Morgan's apartment. You can even see his balls (from the back).
- Hair-Contrast Duo: Extroverted and energetic blonde Morgan is best friends with introverted and reserved brunette Audrey.
- Heh Heh, You Said "X": Audrey and Sebastian infiltrate the gala as guests while Morgan is among the acrobats on stage, and doesn't realize that Drew's fake parents aka the heads of Highland recognize them.Sebastian: Morgan. Get backstage. I've just been blown.
Morgan: (loud giggle) - History with Celebrity: Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked NSA files in 2013, apparently had a crush on Morgan in summer camp. Morgan takes advantage of this and gets him to remotely hack the drive.
- Hollywood Hacking: Sebastian is unable to hack the drive after some laptop tapping (tutting that it would take a supercomputer days to figure out the password). The team's solution? Call Edward Snowden, who is able to do it remotely after a few minutes.
- Hurricane of Puns: In The Stinger, Morgan makes a bunch of Japanese food puns in quick succession.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: Audrey is remarkably cool-headed when shooting a man in the cafe shootout; she attributes it to playing lots of video games.
- Impaled Palm: One of the assassins in the cafe is stabbed through the hand by Sebastian, causing her to fire her gun into a microwave and a large amount of steam to billow into the room.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Morgan defeats Nadedja by kicking her into an anchor on the side of the room as part of a museum display, which goes straight through Nadedja's chest.
- Improvised Weapon: Drew uses a cue ball wrapped in a scarf in the film's opening fight.
- Invisible President: Morgan calls her old boyfriend, Edward Snowden, to hack into the flash drive. The actor who plays Snowden is only shown from behind.
- Ivy League for Everyone: Duffer went to Harvard and will bring it up at every available opportunity.
- Kick the Dog: While holding Sebastian at gunpoint, Duffer forces him to raise his broken arm higher for no reason other than he can.
- Look Both Ways: One of the biker assassins is killed when Audrey knocks him off a car into the street, where he gets run over by a bus.
- MacGuffin: The flash drive that was in the trophy. What turns out to be in it (formerly believed to be terrorist plans, actually a "backdoor" to the entire internet) isn't as important as how everyone is fighting to get it.
- Neck Snap: Drew kills his target in the Action Prologue by breaking his neck. He follows that up by blowing him up with a piece of metal in a microwave.
- The Nondescript: Sebastien basically describes Canadians as this to justify him and Audrey replacing the Canadian ambassador and his wife as part of their attempt to intercept the trade for the drive.
- Not Quite Dead: Drew turned out to have survived getting shot in the throat early in the film.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Henshaw is English but Sam Heughan's natural Scottish accent can be heard leaking through on occasion.
- Pac Man Fever: When we first see Audrey, she's playing the arcade game Point Blank — except somehow, the screen shows the Nintendo DS (portable) version.
- Shout-Out:
- The film's title is a play on The Spy Who Loved Me.
- Morgan refers to Wendy as "[a] Judi Dench", referencing the role of M in the Daniel Craig James Bond films. She also calls her the Beyoncé of government.
- Audrey tells Drew to find the worst song in the jukebox, saying "Your mission should you choose to accept it..."
- Nadedja appears late in the movie in Borg cosplay.
- Skewed Priorities: Morgan turns out to be the queen of this (heavily implied to be a case of Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!)."Do you want to die having never been to Europe? Or do you want to go to Europe, and die having been to Europe?"
- Small Name, Big Ego: Duffer never misses an opportunity to bring up the fact that he went to Harvard even when it isn't relevant.
- Spoiler Cover: Slightly. Audrey and Morgan only wear the dresses in the poster picture during a short mid-credits Stinger scene.
- Spot the Imposter: Though not physical copies, Drew and Sebastian both tell Audrey that the other is working for the bad guy during the climax, and she has to choose which one she thinks is telling the truth. Leads to…
- Stop Copying Me: Sebastien and Drew fall into this in the final confrontation as the former just repeats the latter's accusations back at him.
- Take That!: Sebastien is clearly annoyed at Duffer taking "just two minutes" to bring up that he's been to Harvard.
- Trouser Space: At one point Audrey hides the drive in her vagina. Revealing this to Sebastian is understandably awkward.
- True Companions: For all their differences, Audrey and Morgan make it clear that they know they can trust each other without question.
- Tyke Bomb: Nadejda, a young Russian gymnast and model who appears to have been groomed into a professional assassin by Highland.
- "Ugly American" Stereotype: When Nadedja is given the order to shoot "two dumb American women", she can't find Audrey and Morgan because of all the uncouth pairs of American tourists. Also, when the large man in the youth hostel sees their guns pointed at him, he just squints and say, "Americans?"
