Red, White & Royal Blue

Synopsis: Scions of English and American power tussle and kiss in a queer rom-com. (Streaming on Amazon as of August 2023)

Red, White & Royal Blue, based on the book by Casey McQuiston, is a completely frivolous fantasy with a touch of wishful thinking politics thrown in. You’ll probably enjoy it. Unless you can’t root for two spoiled brats living happily ever after.

The flick follows rom-com conventions with a meet-cute (involving a cake) and the push-pull of attraction vs annoyance. The two potential love interests, one English & one American, are catapulted into the headlines when they cause the frosting to hit the fan at the wedding of England’s Crown Prince Philip (Thomas Flynn). And here is where convention is upended: the two meant-to-be lovers are men.

Prince Henry’s older brother Philip is huffy and snobbish, like IRL Prince William is rumored to be by his bro, Harry. RW&RB‘s is a bit like Prince Harry, misunderstood and hemmed in by royal protocol. As played by Nicholas Galitzine, he’s a sumptuous English Rose, fair and pink-lipped.

Henry doesn’t care for the brash Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez), son of American President Ellen Claremont and a Hispanic congressman dad, Oscar Diaz (Clifton Collins Jr). Alex is a Latino dreamboat with gym-sculpted muscles and feathery eyelashes. I bet those lashes are the tiebreaker in getting roles. Please don’t tell me they’re fake.

Prince Henry and Alex get snippy with each other at the wedding, leading to a tumble into the Royal Wedding Cake. The tabloids make the incident all about the guys, when they should be paying homage to the loss of an historic cake. Alex and Henry are instructed by their respective camps to make nice.

Alex’s president mom is a politician from Texas, played to wonderfully campy effect by Uma Thurman. Okay; her accent is hilarious, all dripping with Tupelo honey. You don’t have to be from the US to infer that people from the southeast don’t have the same accent as folks from the southwest. In fact, I can confirm that there are people from Austin who don’t sound southern at all. These poor people know to watch their step when they go into deep Red* Texas shopping for arts & crafts. But this is great! I mean how authentic do you expect this movie confection to be?

The Prince and Alex set to mending fences via cellphone, because what romance today doesn’t include quips and flirtations via texts? Prince Henry calls Alex a wanker, but it’s all in good fun. We gather that Alex is a student because we see him walk through a student union-looking cafe with a backpack slung over his shoulder. Another clue! He has a UT (University of Texas) sticker on his laptop. At some point, Uma–looking great in a red power blazer– grabs a few words with Alex. Something along the lines of: So proud of yuh wuhrk at Georgetown Law School. Alex must have some special arrangement with the school because we never see him study. He just texts the Prince during classes (I think you’d like Austin) and lectures his mom on how she needs to concentrate on winning Texas in the upcoming election, insisting that he has a plan for flipping the state Blue.* Sure, Alex.

Alex and Henry’s first get together after CakeGate is at a press conference in London where they lob backhanded compliments at each other. But the chemistry is def there and they start to soften their opinions of each other as each interacts sweetly with kids at a hospital. Thank goodness children’s hospitals exist so that VIPs can demonstrate to the public what truly good souls they are– well, that and healing sick kids.

Alex and Henry are lucky to have found (potential) soulmates that happen to be gorgeous too. And we’re lucky too in that we can follow them around the globe thanks to B rolls of London, and a big photo of the Eiffel Tower plastered outside their set’s hotel room window. It’s not long before Alex is referring to Henry as “Your Royal Hardness.” In further romantic ambling we are forced to go to the very unromantic Washington, DC.  But Alex does throw a banging NYE party at the White House. Models and Prince Henry attend.

But all does not look well on the horizon. While Alex has been accustomed to a lusty bi love life and press-free romps through the Texas countryside, the Prince is nearly cloistered when he’s not playing polo. And those British rags are vicious. Henry confides in Alex that he wishes he was living as a writer in Paris. That is THE dream, isn’t it? <<copious self-pitying tears>>

I mean how can they come out to the world without Henry’s grandpa the King upbraiding him about “duty” and heterosexual expectations and Democrat mama Uma’s presidential race neck-in-neck in America with some soulless Republican? Also, there may be a jealous former hookup or two who is none too happy to see Alex and Henry falling in love.

Fortunately, Uma is cool with her son’s new significant other. Alex is like, 23 y o, but Uma thinks she’s up to speed by now discussing safe sex with him. I felt the filmmakers could’ve reassured us that the two lovers were being responsible by showing their bedroom floor strewn with condom wrappers. We do get some butt shots that can’t have merited an R rating for RW&RB. Maybe because of the frank discussion of man with man sex that Alex and his mum have? In fact, Uma expounding on the health bennies of the HIV antiviral Truvada and the HPV vaccine should be considered a public health service. Btw, Uma, if Alex has been dipping into female gennies, he should already have had the vaccine that holds off the human papillomavirus.

So… The romance is satisfying; Alex and Henry could be any gender. When two adults come together in a romcom, it’s fun to see the chemistry and how they fill in each other’s figurative – or literal – gaps. RW&RB makes up for lost time with an appealing LGBTQ couple.

I particularly like a scene in which Alex and Henry dance together among statues after hours at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. (The real place!) Henry’s caution and Alex’s confidence come together for at least long enough for us to hope they can make a go of it publicly. And wish we could snag some afterhours museum entries ourselves.

Finally, the biggest fantasy isn’t that an LGBTQ couple can be together openly everywhere, but that Texans will embrace liberal values and vote for a Democrat presidential candidate. Hmm, come to think of it, viewers in Red States better watch this rom com in case LGBTQ movies become censored like books in their libraries.

*For those outside the US, Democrats are represented as blue on election maps and Republicans are red. Eg., More voters in California and New York State vote Democrat/Blue in presidential elections, while more voters in Texas and Florida vote Republican/Red. Unlike in state and local races, the president is not elected by popular vote, but through the representative electoral college system. (A candidate can win the popular vote, yet still lose the election.) Look this up online if you want to give yourself a headache. Likewise, curious people outside of the UK can give themselves a headache by reading about the parliamentary system and how prime ministers come about.

Movie Loon’s Movie Review Shortcut:

Grade:   B-

Cut to the Chase:  Lightweight — for better or for worse. Good chemistry between the leads.

Humor Highlight:  Gotta be southern Uma. Runner up is Stephen Fry as the King of England.