Review: My Date with the President’s Bi Son
‘Red, White & Royal Blue' is light, saucy, summer fun
The Yearning Rating: ✰✰✰
Romance: ✰✰✰✰
Sex: ✰✰✰
Storytelling: ✰✰✰
Performance: ✰✰✰
Yearning: ✰✰✰✰
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Some spoilers ahead for Red, White & Royal Blue!
Written by Meg Heim
We’re kind of obsessed with the adult children of royalty and political leaders, aren’t we? Or maybe it's more accurate to say we were, as ‘90s kids and teens, warmed by the rays of a cultural incubator that fixated on them. As we perpetuate our forever girlhoods (hi Barbie!), nostalgia is in the air. I think the children of the politically and royally elevated intrigued us so much because we knew that deep down, they were kind of, maybe, probably a little like us. Underneath the put-upon pomp and circumstance, they probably also listened to popular music, watched Girls or Breaking Bad, and craved Taco Bell. But we (and Hollywood) always wondered. The fairy tales of our childhoods laid the groundwork, with countless stories plucking girls out of normalcy and into princesshood. There’s also a more modern lexicon to back this up. We had, at our nail-polish-adorned fingertips, a myriad of late ‘90s and early 2000s teen rom coms on this topic: The Prince and Me, Chasing Liberty, What a Girl Wants, My Date with the President’s Daughter, and even The Princess Diaries, which also navigated dating-while-princessified. What I’m trying to say is: the film adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s novel Red, White & Royal Blue is incredibly DCOM1 coded.
To buy into RW&RB and its peers, you have to just accept that it will be the silliest possible portrayal of politics and royal life. Your top security guard will be a lovable grump, princesses will be allowed to get married in sleeveless gowns, and the son of the United States’ Commander in Chief will slap your royal butt and refer to you as “Your Royal Hardness”.
Red, White & Royal Blue sets your expectations within the first ten minutes of the movie—when Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” kicks in as the boys scramble to right themselves amongst £75,000 worth of smashed wedding cake. Can you think of a more perfect song for a 90s bad girl intro? Hold on a sec…”Bad Reputation” also intros the edgy, sullen Kat in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). This is what I’m talking about—immaculate, early-aughts energy. RW&RB followed this up with a fun, animated and color saturated title sequence that was completely and perfectly Freaky Friday adjacent.
So come now, children, nestle up alongside me and recline on the pillowy lips of the hearthrobby Prince Henry (played by Nicholas Galitzine) as we dissect the good, the bad, and the gay of Red, White & Royal Blue. Everything about this adaptation is just slightly indecent in a quippy, frank way that totally works with the 2000s romcom energy it channels. It really understands how not-real it is, which is crucial!! Why would we take this seriously? It’s only love in the time of international trade negotiations. The characters act as if they are entirely free of the near-constant scrutiny their real-life counterparts would experience in a steamy, intercontinental plot such as this.
Red, White & Royal Blue hurtles headlong into its plot. It moves quick. It’s fun and fast paced but loses a lot of the slow, page-turning buildup that I loved in McQuiston’s book. Before we’ve even watched their first onscreen encounter, we learn that the First Son of the American President, Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez) and England’s Prince Henry of Wales already loathe each other. But the cake-tastrophe between the two of them at Henry’s brother Prince Philip’s wedding will surely wreck the US’ trade negotiations with England!!
So just fifteen minutes in, Alex and Henry are already doing an image-correcting publicity campaign where they grit their teeth and try their very hardest to stand each other. When gunshots are heard at the local hospital where they’re reading to children, they’re shoved into a janitor’s closet together. Here, they’re too focused on breathing heavily, the forced chemistry of a tight space, and begrudging compliments on each other's cologne to worry about the potential gun violence (thankfully it was fireworks). The campiness is very right—it's a very ugh, are you serious? moment, followed by some brief longing, and then a return to annoyance.
The veiled flirtation that follows is very sweet—the two start flirting via text and talking over the phone. I liked the way that the texting was represented—instead of us having to read all their exchanges in little text window bubbles, they superimposed Prince Henry into Alex’s everyday life. He appears on a park bench, texting, as Alex jogs by, or the two lie in bed next to each other in their PJs talking on the phone before bed. Texting is a big part of the book—how else are two hot young twenty-somethings going to internationally chat?—and I liked that this crush process wasn’t cut for brevity.
When the two lock eyes across a crowded dance floor—the only two standing while everyone else is following the directives in Lil Jon’s “Get Low”—the whole world slows down. You know, in the way it always does when Lil Jon is playing. Prince Henry kisses Alex in a very British-coded, passionate way (“Christ, you’re as thick as it gets”) in the powdery DC snow and these romcom wheels are turning!! The movie deviates from the book here in that Alex’s bisexual awakening is pretty smoothed over—there’s no real process of him coming to terms with it. He sort of just gets on board with being “low-key into guys”, as he puts it. In the book, Alex is a lot more surprised by his attraction to Henry and his subsequent growing romantic feelings. I really enjoyed the way that Book Alex re-evaluated his relationship with a possibly more-than-friend from childhood named Liam. In the book, Alex and Liam reconnect while he is processing all of this. Looking back and recognizing that friendships in your past might have been a little bit gay is a pretty universal queer experience, and it would’ve been nice to see that brought to life.
But…we’re on a romcom schedule, babe!! There’s no time!! Pretty quickly we get to some steeeeeamy sex scenes, which are a little bit jarring when tied into the goofy, snappy nature of the rest of the movie. But just as a reminder—this is our grown up, gay Disney Channel Original Movie, and we get to make the rules.
While Alex and Henry are falling in love and slow dancing in museums after dark, President Claremont (played by Uma Therman) is also trying to get reelected and is facing off against the ominous, conservative Senator Richards. Uma Therman is doing her very best Jessica Lange drag in this movie, and that in and of itself is worth watching. She luxuriates over simple phrases like, “Oh, hi, darlin,’” or “we’re gonna need some pizza”. She marches off screen in a blouse set that Madam Secretary herself would be proud to hang in her closet. It’s pleasing to hear her say the phrase “Rust Belt” so many times. Aside from her vibes, Uma’s performance channels an optimistic narrative that world leaders have no trouble whatsoever balancing parenting and politics on a global scale. After Alex comes out to her, she cuddles him on the couch, long blonde curls tumbling this way and that. She reassures him that, “When you’re a parent, every day is uncharted territory”. Hush now baby, Mommy’s going to get you some Truvada!
Uma’s scenes are bolstered by the iconic Sarah Shahi, who plays her whip smart, funny Chief of Staff Zahra. Shahi is forever commemorated in our hearts as Carmen, Shane’s indisputable #1, top tier love interest in the original L Word! (!!!!)
Alex and Henry’s relationship is exposed without their consent, and once again the film deviates from the book pretty significantly. I didn’t particularly love the choice to make a queer, non-white journalist vindictively out other queer people on a global scale, especially considering that in the book, it's the result of dirty political tactics (courtesy of Senator Richards’ campaign). But if I had to guess, this choice probably had more to do with condensing the narrative efficiently into the film format than making an intentional storytelling choice.
Other highlights include Rachel Maddow playing herself, iffy CGI’ed White House porches, and a general smoothing over of the kinds of details and plot foils that fit better into a novel than a movie. Especially a movie of this style! I love Red, White & Royal Blue for exactly what it is: juicy, playful, witty and full of nostalgic fun. It’s a solidly constructed romcom that reminds me of all my favorites from the 2000s, but made gay! Thank goddess! I thought the two actors had pretty good chemistry, with Galitzine’s performance as a slightly-tortured-but-still-hunky-and-charming English prince stealing the show for me. And just as its predecessors would suggest, Red, White & Royal Blue hinges on one important premise: neither international politics, nor the influence of the Crown, can hold a candle to the power of true (and steamy) love.
You can stream Red, White & Royal Blue now on Amazon Prime.
Attention all ugly, untalented gays! Next week on The Yearning, Ali reviews Emma Seligman’s Bottoms.
If you don’t know this abbreviation then…there’s the door. JK - I’m talking Disney Channel Original Movies!