Red White and Royal Blue Review: In his feature film directorial debut, Matthew Lopez’s screenplay, written with Ted Malawer, for the America romantic comedy is based on the 2019 novel of the same name, authored by Casey McQuinston. The 2023 film stars Taylor Zakhar Perez (Kissing Booth) as Alex Claremont-Diaz, son of the U.S. President and Nicholas Galitzine (Purple Hearts) as Prince Henry, the titular characters who fall in love with each other.
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, August 11, 2023 onwards, the film has been produced by Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter. With a runtime of 118 minutes, the movie also stars Uma Thurman, Stephen Fry, Sarah Shahi, Rachel Hilson, Ellie Bamber, Aneesh Seth, Clifton Collins Jr and others.
Red White and Royal Blue Movie Review Contains a Mild Spoiler
Red White and Royal Blue Review
Remember all the fun and goodness of early Y2K rom-coms? Now make them more charmingly sensitive and mix in the bag of honour and politics, tying up the fate of the First son of the United States and the Prince of England. That’s exactly what Casey McQuinston’s novel is all about. From the very first looks of its movie adaptation, the trailer boasted of a genuine coming alive of the characters on the page, and the credit for this is duly shared by Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine, and their shared onscreen chemistry. Both have already had a taste of romantic dramas before, but hinged on the heteronormative scope of things.
Having earned the titles of hearth-throbs through their former respective contributions to OTT movies, they finally get a chance to put their heads and hearts together in the latest Amazon Studios film, and it makes for a delightful watch to say the least. The movie opens up with them facing off against each other at the wedding of the crown prince of England, Philip (Thomas Flynn).
Alex is sent off to step in on behalf of his mother, the US President Ellen Claremont (Thurman). The whole scene is set up for the US to deepen their cordial political ties with England, but we have Alex and Henry publicly tussling against each other until finally the imposing wedding cake falls on top of them, smearing the “the buttercream summit” headlines against their names.
This arduous scenario calls for them to clean up their mess, publicly of course, as they push for the image of them being long-time good friends. Tapping into the classic tropes defining the genre of romantic comedies, the movie has them jump into the enemies-to-friends and the friends-to-lovers archetypes, yet none of it gets on your nose. Rather you end up finding the whole predictable transition an endearing journey. Perez and Galitzine’s banters early on can easily get you giggling and enjoying their dynamic, only for it to later deepen into heartfelt emotional moments.
Their miscommunications and misunderstandings are set aside pretty early into the story without dragging the drama ahead, as the two prestigious public figures start to bond. Certain sequences first indulge in their long distance friendship with colourful heartwarming interventions on the screen with savvy visual effects, further conveying the image that they’ve grown a lot closer in spite of the distance between them. These visuals gradually capture their growing fondness for each other, all reminiscent of the basic rom-com structure, except this time they break out of the conventional heteronormative mould that often caged its characters while also delving into problematic stereotypes.
We’ve got the slow burn romance, heated intimate scenes, supportive family members and not so supportive ones as well, the gang is all there. Despite these all too familiar elements (even Stephen Fry’s common stern British characterisation) making up a romance between British royalty and American politics, it never feels overdone because this time the characters’ individuality is equally crucial for the story to flourish. So, just like Alex’s father calls it, “what’s not to like”, but in this case not just about Galitzine’s Henry, but both of these leading characters, as well as the two of them together.
Questions of sexual and social identity, forced coming out scenarios, personal desire, duty, honour, expectations, tradition and one’s agency naturally come up will dissecting the wishes of these characters and the social context they’ve been born and brought up in. Other than Uma Thurman’s questionable Texas accent, everything rises up as a big hit, but the one question that keeps disturbing me is – Why was this film rated ‘R’ despite it not having too visual sex scenes? Is it simply due to the same sex nature of the romance?
Final Thoughts
What I particularly adored about this film was how actually LGBTQ+ inclusive it was, just like how Heartstopper isn’t simply a “gay love story” because, it’s not and neither is Red, White and Royal Blue. They bring in many counterparts and individuals from the whole rainbow spectrum (Aneesh Seth plays Amy, a transgender Secret Service agent), but even then it’s not preachy in terms of coercing unaccepting people to become sensitive, instead it merely lays out the definition of love’s universality in actions and words spoken by the characters, making it all the more personal.
However, one of the major issues is that most of the other supporting characters largely stay out of the picture and remain underused. While that is understandable since this is a film adaptation and not a series one, so only limited space and timeframe can be allotted to them aside of the main characters. Fry’s cold representation as the British Royalty’s leader stays stale and unmoving as well.
One of Alex’s quotes that deeply struck a chord with me was, “The forced conformity of the closet cannot be answered with forced conformity in coming out of it”, and I think that strikingly sums up the discordant distance between what’s personal and public and how one’s matters of the heart and their explanations are not owed to a third uninvolved party ever, until the hearts involved decide to take that step themselves.
Red White & Royal Blue starts streaming on Amazon Prime Video on August 11, 2023.