Red, White & Royal Blue Review: Queer Romance From The White House To Buckingham Palace
- Great chemistry between lead actors
- Strong development of the central relationship
- Bad dialogue, especially in the first act
- Cringey rom-com cliches
If you thought that the British royal family was thrown for a loop when the spare to the throne got engaged to an American (and an American with anything other than lily-white ancestry, for that matter), wait until you see what happens in "Red, White & Royal Blue." The film adaptation of Casey McQuiston's popular book represents one of Amazon's first big steps into the romance market that has so far been dominated — in streaming, at least — by Netflix. With an incredibly loyal fanbase, the LGBT+ love story has a lot to live up to, and it's mostly successful. The strength of the overall narrative and the charming lead performances from Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine carry it over the finish line, even in the face of some extremely dodgy dialogue and occasionally lazy cliches.
Alex Claremont-Diaz (Perez) is the son of the first female president of the United States, played by Uma Thurman using a bizarrely over-the-top Texan accent. (She wins the award for most perplexing accent work, by the way, stealing the crown from Tom Hanks in "Elvis.") On a photo op mission to help bolster trade talks with Great Britain, Alex is sent to the U.K. to attend the royal wedding of Prince Philip, heir to the throne. While there, he crosses paths with the young Prince Henry (Galitzine), with whom he maintains a pointed animosity after a perceived slight at a previous public engagement. The two don't exactly hit it off, leading to the destruction of an extremely expensive cake at Philip's wedding reception and drawing ire from both American and British camps. They are instructed to mend their fences, a task they perform — perhaps a little bit too well, as the more they get to know each other, the more they begin to develop feelings.
Dodgy dialogue
In the first half of the film, it feels as though the actors are being let down by the script. There's tons of goofy dialogue (what can we say about a character telling Alex two minutes into the film that he's "yucking her yum" as he grumbles about attending the royal wedding?) and clumsy exposition. "Red, White & Royal Blue" works really hard to get us into position for the eventual romance, and you can see all the wheels turning throughout, as it employs every cheap rom-com cliche in the book. The snarky dialogue the two exchange is painful — and a little unbelievable, considering that a main plot point is the fact that they're required to wear masks in public but can't seem to keep it together when they're around one person they've met a handful of times and mildly dislike. You can see the actors doing their best but struggling to land some of the film's more leaden lines. The dialogue in the first half prevents it from rising above the standard romances on Hallmark or Lifetime when this feels like it deserves to be more than that.
But Perez and Galitzine keep the film alive through sheer force of willpower and charm, and by the time "Red, White & Royal Blue" leaves its meet-cute era, things are on much firmer ground. The actual narrative is undeniably compelling, even if the dialogue doesn't always live up to it, and it deals sensitively with the very different issues that both men face in this relationship. For Alex, the privacy of their relationship is key in the short term: He doesn't want to rock the boat before his mother's historic reelection campaign. But for Henry, not letting the truth about his sexuality become public is a matter of survival. We're all aware of the pressure the British royal family can exert on its less "traditional" members, and Galitzine plays Henry as a wounded deer constantly terrified that someone will discover his secret. The first time he kisses Alex, the look that follows isn't one of excitement, but abject horror — what has he done?
Navigating an unusual relationship
This dynamic, as both characters reconcile with what their relationship actually means and how they can stay together without destroying their lives, is what makes the third act of the film land. "Red, White & Royal Blue" offers a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be LGBT+ in the public eye, and how they can reconcile the world's insatiable curiosity about — and support for — their relationship with the fact that they have had very real personal boundaries violated. It's refreshing that the conflict in this film is Alex and Henry against the world, rather than inventing some little contrived misunderstanding to keep the two temporarily apart, as we see in so many other romance stories like this.
"Red, White & Royal Blue" unfolds in very much the same way as the relationship between Alex and Henry — extremely rocky at first, bordering on insufferable, but then eventually leveling out into something that is genuinely heartwarming. If it firmly adheres to the cliches and conventions of the traditional romance film in the first half — often to its detriment — it does go on to carve out a narrative more authentic to the interesting characters it creates. Perez and Galitzine have a wonderful spark together, and their spicy chemistry papers over any tonal inconsistencies in the storytelling, building out a mostly satisfying rom-com that lives up to the expectations set by the beloved novel.
"Red, White & Royal Blue" will hit Prime Video on August 11.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn't exist.