Written by Casey McQuiston And Matthew Lopez And Ted Malawer
Directed by Matthew Lopez
Prince Henry: "Please be patient with me, and I promise I wil try and be brave for us. Because when they write the history of my life, I want it to include you and my love for you."
Alex: "History, huh? Bet we could make some."
I guess August 2023 really has been the month for the YA LGBT audience. First with the release of Season 2 of Heartstopper, and now with the adaptation of Casey McQuiston's of Red, White & Royal Blue. I have never read the book, so my review clearly won't be too influenced by it. Well, maybe a tiny bit.
Anyways the premise of this movie played on the classic trope of "enemies/rivals to lovers" and it's certainly a fun one to watch. On one hand you have the son of the US female President and on the other hand, you have the "spare" Prince of the Royal Family. Such a culture clash already.
Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar-Perez) started the movie with an immense dislike for Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) and it's pretty mutual. Following the wedding of the latter's brother and an incident with both Alex and Henry having a massive cake crash on them, it's up to a swift PR campaign to get the two of them to appear like best friends.
The fun part was the movie moving swiftly past their initial rivalry (something involving Alex mishearing a past conversation from Henry) to a full on texting friendship. Then there was a New Year's Eve party that had the two share their first kiss.
Now with this being in the YA genre, I think some were hoping the R-rating this movie got would mean that we were going to get more explicit sex scenes between Alex and Henry as their relationship blossomed but what we got was something on between. Slightly more racy than the average YA adaptation but not quite on a HBO level either. For me, it was just fine.
The chemistry with Nicholas Galitzine and Taylor Zakhar-Perez was absolutely spot on and while there's an abundance of cheesy dialogue and some serious logic gaps with the overall politics and royalty bits, I absolutely bought the love story with Alex and Henry and their perspectives too in relation to coming out.
Alex does have a somewhat easier time coming out as a bisexual man. He got the support system with his President mother, Ellen (Uma Thurman), his father, Oscar (Clifton Collins, Jr) and best friend, Nora (Rachel Hilson). Saying that though, there's a foil for him with a reporter ex-boyfriend, Miguel (Juan Castano) who had zero problem outing Alex and Henry's relationship.
As for Henry, yes it's the oligation of being a Royal and not being allowed to love who he wants to. Something that's driven into by his married brother, Phillip (Thomas Flynn) and his somewhat homophobic grandfather, King James III (Stephen Fry). Still though Henry had a supportive sister in Beatrice (Ellie Bamber) and the movie certainly ended on a very happy note between Henry and Alex. All's well that ends well would be the order of the day.
- Shout out to to Sarah Shahi for her performances as Zahra, who got a lot of funny one liners here.
- Doctor Who connections aside from Stephen Fry included Jemma Redgrave as the narrator and Sharon D. Clarke as the UK Prime Minister.
- Casey McQuiston did have a cameo in the movie and there's a scene where Alex was reading her other book, One Last Stop. I assume Amazon intend to adapt that too.
- The post credit scene was a reaction to Alex and Henry having the cake fall on them.
- Standout music: Up The Hill Backwards by David Bowie (Henry's dog is named after him), Piano Sonata No. 11 in AK 331 by Alfred Brendel and Fruit by Oliver Sim.
- Chronology: 2023 and 2024, given the re-election of Ellen Claremont.
Red, White & Royal Blue did basically everything I expected of it and my expectations were moderate to begin. It's a light, frothy but feel good movie aimed at a younger audience than me and I think it succeeded there. Great chemistry with Nicholas Galitzine and Taylor Zakhar-Perez, some good intimate scenes with Alex and Henry and a cute ending. That's all it needed to do and it did it well.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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