As promised, my new favorite movie is getting publicly praised by me. Where do I start? I read Red, White and Royal Blue about 4 or 5 times, and I obviously love the book. It’s what I read to get out of a reading slump, Henry and Alex are two of my comfort characters, and I have a tone of bookmarks in my eBook. When the casting for Henry and Alex was announced (Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine) I was more than skeptical, since they didn’t fit what I had in my had, and I couldn’t imagine them having the chemistry Alex and Henry require. But man, was I wrong. I’m getting ahead of myself though, so let’s start at the beginning.
Earlier this summer Amazon released their movie adaptation of Red, White and Royal Blue, a romantic comedy novel by Casey McQuiston. The book follows the budding romance between the son of the president of the United States and the prince of England. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s so so good, and I can’t recommend the book enough. The movie doesn’t follow the book to a T, for obvious reasons when creating a two-hour movie for a 400-page book. There were some characters altered or completely cut from the movie, the main characters were aged up, and just a whole lot of changes. Shockingly, I’m not mad at almost any of the changes. In fact, in a miraculous fit, I was able to separate the movie from the book and enjoy it as its own creation, which is very unlike me, which probably means the movie is pretty good on its own. I honestly don’t think I want to dwell on the changes from the book, because they really didn’t deter me from rewatching the film three times in two weeks.
Instead, lets treat the movie as its own thing. I want to start with the absolutely banging cast for this film. Taylor and Nicholas have amazing chemistry, and individually were just fantastic. Especially Nicholas, who keeps showcasing his range by playing wildly different characters and nailing it every time. Then they went and casted Uma Thurman as Ellen the president of the United States?? Such a great move. She’s a total badass. Rachel Wilson as Nora was sweet, but unfortunately her character was a bit vanilla, so she didn’t get to shine.
This movie managed to make me laugh, cry and go “aww” in the span of less than two hours, and it managed to mostly avoid dialogues that make you cringe, which is very challenging for RomComs. That brings me to the screenplay, which was all around super good, and especially nailed being relatable to Gen Z without being “how do you do fellow kids”. It had a few emotional moments, especially in Alex’s speeches and his fight with Henry. At the same time, it had hilarious and sexy moments in their banter. So really, 10/10 writing.
Also, obvious kudos to director Matthew Lopez, when he talks on interviews about the making of the film, it really shows that he made incredible choices.
Now we must discuss the queerness since this is why we’re all here. What can I say? Henry is gay with a conservative family, Alex is bi with a liberal one, you get to see both their experiences play out. I have to mention the book here, since in it you get a lot of queer history and a deeper analysis of some queer themes. It would have been too much for the movie to include all that, so I get it, though I do miss it. Since the characters were aged up for the movie, we get to see them a little less confused and fumbling, especially Alex, which is kind of nice. He accepts his bisexuality quite smoothly, which is very unrealistic to be honest, since bi people usually take ages to identify as bi and even then, we keep questioning it forever. Still, love that for him, go get your prince. I obviously loved Alex’s speech coming out speech and his description and defense of the queer experience, I want it showed to everyone ever.
I could go on about this movie forever, but I prefer to just go watch it again. 5/5 if it wasn’t clear from my heart-eyes.
