This review 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.Adapting any bestselling book can be a tall task, but duplicating the success of a romance novel from page to screen can sometimes be akin to capturing lightning in a bottle — twice. Given that the genre is rooted so profoundly in introspection, the trick lies in figuring out how to take the thoughts we're only privy to when we're in the characters' heads and bring them to life in external performance. Since its initial publication in 2019, Casey McQuiston's debut novel Red, White & Royal Blue has captured millions of readers' hearts in its rendering of the love story between the son of a U.S. president and a prince fourth in line to the British throne. Two parties who beat the overwhelming odds to find true love with each other is a universal concept in the romance genre. Still, Hollywood has often struggled to reproduce the same magic in its own adaptations — in part because of the difficulty of rendering something so rooted in internal emotion in a bolder, more outward medium.
All this is to say that director Matthew Lopez, who co-writes the script based on McQuiston's novel alongside Ted Malawer, does succeed at breathing new life into this enemies-to-lovers romance tale for both newcomers and diehard book fans alike. The biggest issues for Prime Video's big-screen adaptation, however, are more definitively found in uneven performances that even the best creative direction and fascinating directorial choices can't completely save.
'Red, White & Royal Blue' Is a Mixed Bag of Performances
The premise is fairly straightforward: Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the First Son of the United States, and Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine), the resident "spare" in the British royal family, have never really gotten along. Eventually, thanks to an utter cake-tastrophe that is likened to an international incident, splashed across the pages of every major newspaper and tabloid, the two are forced to shake hands and make up for the purposes of good PR. This adjusted proximity conceit, naturally, means that Alex and Henry are forced into one another's orbit for the necessary photo ops and shared interviews, during which they lie through their teeth about having always been close personal friends. Behind the scenes, however, they're given the chance to see different sides of each other that they've never been privy to before — and come to the mutual realization that their first-ever meeting was really just a case of two people starting off on the wrong foot. Their snarking and competitive tendencies give way to attraction, and before they know it, they've entered into a secret romance, complete with sneaking away for quickies in public places and texting each other all day and into the night.
Without going further into spoiler territory (though the fans who have read the book may not be entirely surprised by the film's path), the biggest success of Red, White & Royal Blue is that it still remains a romance at its core, but the movie's runtime, unfortunately, cuts into more opportunities to spend scenes with some of the delightful ensemble cast. Sarah Shahi is a powerhouse as U.S. Deputy Chief of Staff and longtime advisor Zahra Bankston, who becomes one of the first people to discover Alex and Henry's secret relationship to amusing results, and Rachel Hilson brings an effervescence to the role of Nora Holleran, one of Alex's closest friends, as he opens up to her about his sexuality. Apart from them, however, the rest of the cast is only given brief opportunities to make their own impression; Henry's older brother Philip (Thomas Flynn) comes across as more of a caricature than a character, the prince's BFF Percy (Malcolm Atobrah) is woefully underused, and Secret Service agent Amy (Aneesh Sheth) is so hilariously dry in every scene that you'll be counting the minutes until she reemerges in the story.
'Red, White & Royal Blue' Captures the Exhilaration and Devastation of a Queer Love Story — to a Point
When it comes to Red, White & Royal Blue's leading duo, however, it feels like only one half is up to the task of exploring this romance in all of its intricacies, or giving us as close a look into their character's soul as we can get without literally having a line to their thoughts. This is where Galitzine utterly excels in the role — as Prince Henry, someone who has been closeted in his sexuality for his entire life and continues to be so out of what he considers an obligation to his royal duty, the conflict that plays out across his features is heartwrenchingly clear. One scene in particular, during which Alex is painfully oblivious to the inner turmoil Henry is experiencing while he rambles on about all the things they'll do together after his mother's bid for reelection, is a testament to Galitzine's piercing emotional range.
Perez, on the other hand, does his best to sell his half of the relationship, but in the film's most impassioned scenes, it still feels as though there's a piece of him that's held back from truly committing to the nuance and full yearning of the character. Some of this is likely a consequence of the stark differences between Alex and Henry's coming-out journeys. As the prince himself notes at one point, Alex has an incredibly supportive family between his POTUS mother (Uma Thurman, who sinks her teeth into every syllable of Ellen Claremont's Texan drawl) and his senator father (a perfectly wielded Clifton Collins Jr.), while Henry has been instructed to bury his deeper longings for the sake of crown and country. Just the same, it often seems as though Red, White & Royal Blue's two leads are operating on disparate emotional wavelengths.
'Red, White & Royal Blue' Takes Some Bold Creative Swings That Occasionally Pay Off
All that said, it's thrilling to watch Lopez make some interesting creative choices in his approach to this romance, several of which put a new spin on what we've seen before on-screen. Lovers of the original book know that for a while, Alex and Henry are separated by distance and duty, which means a heavy reliance on texting and phone calls (yes, even those) in this day and age. Rather than frame these late-night talks with the actors in two separate rooms, Lopez, alongside cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt, flips the idea on its head by positioning Perez and Galitzine in the same place — and sometimes even in the same bed — so we're given the visual of the two of them keeping each other company in a more intimate space in spite of the fact that they're hundreds of miles away from each other in reality.
There's also a particularly striking scene that occurs during Alex's New Year's Eve bash — one of those instances where the rest of the partygoers drop away for only a few seconds, but Lopez chooses to frame it as a point in time that stretches on for what feels like an eternity. It's one of the best portions of the film that comes close to replicating the feeling of reading a romance novel, where Alex and Henry get to look into each other's eyes unblinkingly and truly see each other for the very first time. Other scenes, however, including a very special one involving Alex's old house, are inexplicably filmed at more of a distance where it's difficult to even fully see faces, creating a remove between the characters and the audience in what should be a joyful and incandescent moment.
Overall, in spite of its stumbles, Red, White & Royal Blue is a charming and diverting rom-com that introduces a welcome new viewpoint to the long-running genre — and Alex and Henry's journey to love is sure to please both longtime fans of McQuiston's novel as well as newer arrivals who are looking for a mostly solid entry point into romance itself.
Rating: B
The Big Picture
- Adapting romance novels to the screen can be challenging due to the difficulty of capturing internal emotions in an external medium.
- The big-screen adaptation of Red, White & Royal Blue successfully breathes new life into the enemies-to-lovers romance but is hindered by uneven performances.
- The film stays true to the core of the romance genre but is limited by its runtime and missed opportunities to explore the ensemble cast.
Red, White & Royal Blue premieres August 11 on Prime Video.
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