‘Red White & Royal Blue’ Is a Gay Romcom So Bad It Might Be Good
It’s a commonly known fact: everyone loves a wedding. Even if you say you don’t, there’s a good chance your affection for nuptials has been buried by the cost of flights, deciphering the dress code (what does “dressy casual” even mean?), or worse, having to attend a plethora of wallet-draining pre-event soirees like your third bachelorette trip to Nashville this year. Luckily for British Prince Henry Fox Mountchristen-Windsor (Nicholas Galitzine) and America’s first son Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez), a royal wedding isn’t their biggest problem — it just starts them all.
While die-hard supporters of Casey McQuiston’s 2019 novel will be more than familiar with the premise of Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue, it’s probably in their best interest if they erase all traces of the book from their minds before pressing play. It’ll make what happens next much, much easier.
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Alex is the first son of the first female President of the United States Ellen Claremont (Uma Thurman), who’s forced to attend England’s royal wedding by his mother. His nemesis is England’s Prince Henry (yes, a prince of England; no, not the prince getting married — stay with me). To make crossing paths with Henry more bearable, Alex mainlines several expensive glasses of whiskey. But rather than dance the night away, Alex ends up in a shoving match with Henry, knocking over a wedding cake that costs more than a brand-new Prius, entangling him in a six-month media maelstrom with the person he hates the most. In a royal enemies-to-lovers plotline dragged straight out of The Social Network fan fiction, Alex and Henry must navigate an election year, coming out, and a clandestine relationship as two of the most highly scrutinized celebs in the world — all while having lots and lots of sex.
Can love, weddings, and figuring out how to have the topping discussion on the big screen really conquer all? It’s clear that director Matthew López wants the audience to answer that question for themselves. Red, White & Royal Blue takes many twists and turns in its sub 2-hour runtime, vaccilating between horrible voicey exposition to lingering moments of budding devotion, as if daring viewers to categorize this gay romcom as just one thing. Is this a straight-to-VOD movie, or a reflection on what queer love-making should be? (Also, no film that includes the line “yucking my yum” should be rated R.)
There are several cute nods to McQuiston as the story’s originator, both in the form of a quick shot of her lesbian romance One Last Stop and in an election-night cameo — which may mollify any disgruntled fans of the book. And, as first female president (and mom), Thurman’s presence onscreen is only outshone by her booming, wildly inconsistent (but incredibly fun) Texas accent. Zakhar Perez, who is technically supposed to be the main character, tries his damnedest to elevate his performance above Hallmark levels, but is immediately surpassed by Galitzine at every turn. In fact, Galatzine does so much for the film that it starts to make you question why he’s even there rather than auditioning to be Christopher Nolan’s next leading man. But the chemistry never evolves into anything beyond friendliness — leaving Galitzine to do all the heavy-lifting. And in a wild turn of events, the only other person who seems to know what the hell they’re doing is Zahra Bankston (Sarah Shahi), President Claremont’s deputy chief of staff. Shahi is brash, hilarious, and elevates the sagging dialogue into some genuinely comical moments.
In the past two years, queer romcoms have often been weighed down by what they have to represent. They are “firsts,” or “historic,” or “unapologetically queer,” laden with buzzwords and expectations that annoyingly have real-world impact on the next films made. With Red, White & Royal Blue seemingly attempting to straddle the line between BookTok virality and on-screen sensuality, the film is content with being merely rewatchable. It’s easy to imagine someone finishing it and not remembering enough to click play again a few weeks later. For a more ambitious film, that would be seen as defeat, but the Prime Video Original actually manages to achieve a small victory — its coronation as a surface-level watch going down as easily as that fated wedding cake.
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