Starting with the positive, Red, White & Royal Blue avoids the biggest red flag of all recent mainstream gay media: there are no Hamilton references! Let’s celebrate that! Unfortunately, this thing barely passes as a real movie. I felt like I was trapped in an episode of The Other Two, watching Cary Dubek watching this film and realizing he was passed over for the role of the reporter, or something. However– and I say this in the nicest way possible even though it sounds mean– this is a great movie for 18-year-old virgins. They deserve to see actual sex scenes in their fanfiction adaptations where the drama hinges on turning Texas blue, somehow. They will love this, and I am happy for them.

Red, White & Royal Blue is a classic enemies-to-lovers story where the leads happen to be the president’s son, Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez), and Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) of the British Royal Family. After causing a scene at a royal wedding, Alex and Henry are forced to go on a publicity tour together by Alex’s mother, President Ellen Claremont (Uma Thurman, doing a southern accent from another planet). As they learn more about each other, they become text buddies until they finally hook up on New Year’s Eve. From there, the men balance their growing feelings with their political roles, trying to avoid media crises and international incidents. It goes well for them.

Despite this thing being incompetently overlit, poorly acted, and idealistic to the point of delusion, I really can’t get that mad at it. I can’t be that cynical about a silly gay romcom. It is just very very funny that the director, Matthew Lopez, made this his film debut after his controversial and dramatic gay Broadway play The Inheritance. Maybe he needed to get his sillies out? While some of the dialogue made me nauseous, and I’ll never unhear Uma Thurman saying “So are you gay, bi, pan?” in her Looney Tunes accent, I do think this is the perfect movie for your closeted gay cousin who is about to go to college and needs a little boost. I’d never take away these things from those people. The people love Sarah Shahi, it must be said – every one of her scenes ended with applause from my audience.

As an Amazon film, Red, White & Royal Blue is going to immediately disappear into the void, and the fact that I saw it at all will be received with disbelief. But before then, maybe a kid who needs to see a kind of accurate gay sex scene will have an awakening? That’s a more realistic goal than changing the course of American politics, at the very least.

Red, White & Royal Blue
2023
Dir. Matthew Lopez
118 min.

Streaming Friday, 8/11 on Amazon Prime Video