across the pond
How Revolutionary Is Prime Video's New Rom-Com 'Red White And Royal Blue?' Here's What The Reviews Say
As many of the review snippets below mention, we're slowly getting to a place where two people of any race, gender, sexuality, creed and color can be in a rom-com and nobody really thinks it's that weird. Which is a good thing, although we're still waiting for the gay equivalent of "When Harry Met Sally" to happen. Could "Red White & Royal Blue" be the movie that delivers?
No, but that doesn't mean it can't still be a good time and well worth watching.
The film is written and directed by Matthew Lopez and stars Taylor Zakhar Perez, Nicholas Galitzine, Clifton Collins Jr., Sarah Shahi, Rachel Hilson, Stephen Fry and Uma Thurman. It's available to watch right now on Amazon Prime Video, and here is what the critics have to say about it.
The premise
After a minor altercation at a royal wedding between Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the son of the US President, and Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine), the younger brother of the heir to the British throne, the pair are ordered to manage the PR disaster by posing as long-term friends just messing about. But more than friendship blossoms between them…
Based on Casey McQuiston’s delightful 2019 novel, "Red, White & Royal Blue" presents, in classic rom-com fashion, two people with multiple obstacles to their happy ending. Henry and Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez), in their early 20s, are two of the most famous young men in the world: Henry’s grandfather (Stephen Fry) is the king of England; Alex is the son of the president of the United States (Uma Thurman, with a Texas accent). Henry knows he's gay but is deeply closeted due to his ultratraditional family; Alex resists labeling himself but thinks he's maybe bisexual, and is constantly being reminded that any hint of scandal might derail his mom's reelection campaign. And, of course, when they first meet, they cutely hate each other and a gigantic wedding cake tips over. (If you are watching this movie and you think that towering cake isn't going to tip over, picturesquely coating the two men in icing, clearly you have never seen a rom-com.)
Gay rom-coms, they're just like straight rom-coms!
I'm ecstatic to report that the day has finally come: "Red, White & Royal Blue" is a movie content with being absolutely nothing. With this film... queer cinema may finally be level with its heteronormative counterparts. At last, we gay people are allowed to be boring, have absolutely no chemistry with our romantic co-leads, and exist as walking archetypes. Red, White & Royal Blue throws the desire to be special or come first out the window. Now, gays can just be cockamamie and utterly vacuous. Equality is here!
For many viewers, there’ll be something charmingly synthetic about Amazon’s milquetoast rom-com "Red, White and Royal Blue," another film aiming to show that gay love stories can be just as basic and sickly sweet as straight ones. Its overwhelming blandness is sort of the point, a sign of true representation, but vaguely admirable intentions only get the film so far; a win that it exists perhaps, but a loss for those hoping for something better than a Hallmark movie. The painfully slow rise in gay stories that cater to a broader crowd has given us some crowd-pleasing winners, standout films like "Love, Simon," "Bros" and "Happiest Season," showing the importance and pleasure of watching same-sex romance on a bigger canvas, bursting out of the arthouse closet.
A nod to a “revolution is coming” is a cliché at this point, vague enough to gesture at pretty much anything. In this case, at least, the vagueness is the point. Alex is referring to the conspicuous consumption before him, but anyone with at least passing knowledge of the story they’re about to witness knows they’re about to watch a gay rom-com, a genre growing in prominence but still relatively rare. Red, White & Royal Blue, ultimately, isn’t revolutionary. It’s more traditional than not — which means, thankfully, that it’s still a lot of fun.
There are also the issues of the film’s version of representation, which will no doubt be picked apart by some more skeptical folks who watch the film. (And inevitably, by those who don’t.) "RW&RB" is essentially a masc-for-masc love story about two jockish hard bodies whose most romantic moment arrives after they’ve dreamily toured the abs-and-pecs statues of London’s National Galleries. (Lopez’s camera casts a distinct gaze on these marble forms, too.) Henry and Alex are presented very safely, as wholesome hunks who probably won’t be slutting it up at Berghain any time soon. Though, they do have actual sex — certainly more graphically than we tend to get in generic rom-coms, let alone in gay ones. Which is a fair representation of the happily, some might say gutsily, sex-filled book.
The cast is great
The cast is refreshingly diverse, with an understated, almost casual, natural sense that this is just the world these characters live in. Each supporting character is comfortable with who they are, and they do not feel they need to mute their accents or otherwise "blend in." It becomes a delicately handled plot point when Alex interacts with a Hispanic reporter, always looking for an edge. We see it clearly in how the journalist speaks to Alex in Spanish to assume a kind of kinship and intimacy that Alex parries uncomfortably. The always-terrific Collins as Oscar has a lovely scene showing his son he supports his love for Henry. Oscar briefly references the challenges he and Ellen faced, implying that coming from different cultures made people skeptical about their future.
Where the film does succeed is in capturing the uniquely corny dynamics of youthful infatuation, as Zakhar Perez and Galitzine bring a made-for-fancasting warmth to their characters that deepens the film’s sometimes-shaky writing of their relationship. For the most part, the reluctant young paramours are charming even when they’re being idiots, to each other or about the world around them: They input contact names like "HRH [His Royal Highness] Prince D—ckhead💩" into their phones, trade personally significant items of jewelry, and tell each other about their childhood joys with their eyes wide and their hearts open. These scenes are generally delightful, and in Galitzine’s case in particular, they offer a cautiously optimistic look at what we might expect from at least one other forthcoming BookTok adaptation.
The best part of this faithful adaptation, directed by Matthew López and written by López and Ted Malawer, is the tentative getting-to-know-you flirtatious scenes that expertly capture the sometimes-awkward thrill of realizing just how much you like someone. It’s a smart choice by Lopez to deploy the now-du jour on-screen text bubbles for their fumbling messages, and a smarter one still to physically place the two in the same spaces as they correspond back and forth, including in bed together as the rest of the world metaphorically falls away. Perez in particular is excellent here, showcasing a real charisma and excitement that all onscreen romantic heroes require.
It reminds people of a Hallmark movie
From the start, the film's aesthetic and tone feel akin to a big-budget Hallmark movie. It has all the predictable stereotypes: British people are uptight. And Americans? They're loud and obnoxious! Groundbreaking. It also features all of the genre's staple montages: the "getting to know each other" montage, the sex montage and, of course, the "it's all fallen apart" montage just before the end. Even for a rom-com, a genre that is often pretty up-front about being formulaic, there is very little that feels unexpected.
Despite its lip service toward "queer liberation," as in a ham-fisted press speech by Alex that suggests a Hallmark-grade spin on the final moments of Charlie Charplin’s "The Great Dictator," the film feels toothless. It seeks to give us an agreeably sexy and frothy romance, and Zakhar Perez and Galitzine’s chemistry facilitates that, even when the actors are awkwardly grabbing at each other’s faces as if they were attacking a hamburger. But the film also wants to make capital-B big statements about advancements in queer rights in erstwhile liberal democracies, which it can only conceive of doing by unironically praising British efforts at wildlife conservation in Africa and the determination of American Democrats to flip Texas blue.
TL;DR
"Red, White & Royal Blue" has some big flaws, but it's a fun and cute rom-com with heart.
An entertaining, humorous, high-spirited adaptation of Casey McQuiston's best-selling 2019 novel.
It turns out that watching two impossibly beautiful boys making cow eyes at each other might be just the escapist pulp we need right now.
As slight as it may be, this is a winning romantic comedy that will leave viewers smiling and, in this instance at least, that's more than enough to satisfy.
Like a corgi back-flipping over a bathtub of champagne, "Red, White & Royal Blue" starts with a giddy premise and has the derring-do to succeed.
Despite its attempts to be racy and of-the-moment and to earn that R rating, “Red, White & Royal Blue” comes across as contrived and, at its foundation, quite formulaic. Not even the cake gives a convincing performance.
