Red, White & Royal Blue (film)

Alex Claremont-Diaz, the son of Ellen Claremont, the first female president of the United States, attends the wedding of Prince Phillip, the eldest grandson of the King of England. Alex loathes Prince Henry, Phillip's younger brother and the "spare" to the British Throne. During the reception, Alex and Henry get into an altercation, resulting in some embarrassing reports in the following morning's newspapers.

To mitigate the incident's press fallout, especially as President Claremont is seeking re-election, Alex and Henry are forced into a series of staged interviews and joint public appearances at which they pose as friends. Later, in a private moment, Alex admits to Henry that he began to resent him after Henry rebuffed him at Alex's first appearance as a public figure. Henry apologizes and explains that his abrupt departure was because he was still mourning his father's death, but not allowed to withdraw from public life. The two make amends, and later begin texting and become jocular, bantering friends.

Invited to Alex's annual New Year's party, Henry leaves abruptly after seeing Alex kiss several girls at midnight. Alex follows him outdoors to the White House grounds. Henry kisses Alex, but fails to respond to Alex's attempts to contact him over the following weeks, to Alex's bewilderment. After confiding in Nora, Alex realizes that he is attracted to Henry.

Weeks later, at a presidential dinner, Alex reunites with Henry and kisses him. The pair enter into a friends with benefits relationship, although they keep their involvement secret except for Nora, Henry's sister Beatrice, Henry's best friend Percy, and their ever-present Secret Service and MI5 bodyguards.

When Alex comes up with a plan for his mother to win Texas in the upcoming election, President Claremont sends him there to lead her Texas campaign. He later travels to Brooklyn to speak at the Democratic National Convention, where Henry unexpectedly visits him. Alex later comes out to his mother, who is supportive, but advises him to think about his relationship carefully.

Alex invites Henry to his family's vacation home near Austin, Texas, and Alex begins to tell Henry that he is in love with him, but Henry, feeling overwhelmed and fearing that he cannot sustain a love-relationship – since the British royal family will not tolerate anyone being in an overt gay relationship – pre-emptively leaves the conversation and flees back to England. He refuses to respond to Alex's attempts to contact him. Alex visits Henry in London unexpectedly and demands an explanation for his behavior. Henry admits that he loves Alex just as Alex loves him, but explains that his royal position makes a gay relationship impossible for him. Alex convinces Henry that Henry loves him enough and their relationship is worth fighting for, and the two reconcile and commit to their relationship.

Shortly after Alex returns to the U.S, Alex and Henry's personal e‑mails to each other are hacked and posted online, and are being widely reported in the press. Both the White House and the Palace cut off all Henry's and Alex's means of contact. Zahra, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, gets in touch with Shaan, Henry's equerry, and Alex and Henry are finally able to talk. Alex immediately flies to London to reunite with Henry. King James III summons them to a meeting and tells them that he believes their love to be genuine, but they cannot be together since their relationship is incompatible with royal tradition. However, Henry's sister Bea notices a crowd gathered in front of Buckingham Palace in support of them, and finds news reports of similar crowds of supporters in Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Liverpool. Alex and Henry step outside together onto the balcony and openly greet the public as a couple.

On election night, Henry returns to the United States to be with Alex. Alex's plan to win Texas for his mother ultimately results in her re-election, Alex and Henry later visit Alex's childhood home in Austin to personally celebrate.

• Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz, the first son of the United States[2]
• Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry, a British prince, the spare to the British throne[2]
• Clifton Collins Jr. as Senator Oscar Diaz, Alex's father[3]
• Sarah Shahi as Zahra Bankston, the deputy chief of staff for Ellen Claremont[2]
• Rachel Hilson as Nora Holleran, Alex's best friend and the granddaughter of the Vice President of the United States[2]
• Stephen Fry as King James III, Prince Henry's grandfather[4]
• Uma Thurman as Ellen Claremont, the first female President of the United States and Alex's mother[2]
• Ellie Bamber as Princess Beatrice, Prince Henry's younger sister[2]
• Thomas Flynn as Prince Phillip, Prince Henry's elder brother[5]
• Malcolm Atobrah as Percy Okonjo, Prince Henry's best friend[6]
• Akshay Khanna as Shaan Shrivistava, Prince Henry's equerry
• Sharon D. Clarke as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• Aneesh Sheth as Amy, the United States Secret Service agent[3][7]
• Juan Castano as Miguel Ramos, a political journalist and Alex's past fling

Additionally, Donald Sage MacKay plays Jeffrey Richards, a Republican nominee facing Ellen Claremont in the presidential election, while Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid appear as themselves. Casey McQuiston, the author of the original novel, has a cameo in the film as Ellen Claremont's speechwriter.

Drum & Lace composed the film's score.[20] The soundtrack album was released on August 11, 2023, by Lakeshore Records.[21]

The album features songs by artists Vagabon and Oliver Sim. "If I Loved You" by Vagabon was released as a promotional single on July 26, 2023. It is a cover of the song of the same name from the musical Carousel.[22][23] It was followed by "Fruit (Red, White & Royal Blue Version)" by Sim on August 3, 2023. It is an orchestral version of his song of the same name from his 2022 album Hideous Bastard.[23][24]

Red, White & Royal Blue had its world premiere at the BFI IMAX in London on July 22, 2023, although its actors were absent due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Matthew Lopez was the only member of the production present but did not walk the red carpet, or give interviews as he was also on strike as a member of the Writers Guild of America.[25]

The film was released on Amazon Prime Video on August 11, 2023.[26] For the first three weeks after its release, it was the top watched film worldwide on the platform and provoked what Prime Video described as "a huge surge" of new subscribers.[27][28]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 75% of 117 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "Amusing and endearing, Red, White & Royal Blue is a cheerfully formulaic rom-com that embraces inclusion without falling back on stereotypes."[29] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 62 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[30]

CNN Entertainment's Brian Lowry stated that the film "is at its core a fairy-tale romance – only where the challenge isn't the customary wicked stepmother or malevolent witch, but rather what happens when true love finds two princes, not one."[31] Amy Nicholson of The New York Times wrote: "It sounds like fan fiction and looks like it, too, particularly when Galitzine dips his chin bashfully — a tic that Princess Diana passed on to her boys. Yet, as in any screwball romance worth its trans-Atlantic sea-salt, the first-time director Matthew López gets us rooting for the cheeky couple's transition from rivals to romantic bedfellows, boosted by the cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt, who photographs the leads so adoringly that you half-expect them to turn to the camera and hawk a bottle of cologne. Thanks to their playful chemistry, we're sold." She, however, criticized several "over-florid theatrical flourishes".[32] The Observer's Wendy Ide awarded the film three out of five stars, dubbing it "so slick and polished, it feels obsessively micro-managed rather than directed." However, she praised the charisma of Zakhar Perez and Galitzine and credited it for the film's appeal: "It turns out that watching two impossibly beautiful boys making cow eyes at each other might be just the escapist pulp we need right now."[33]

New York Post's Lauren Sarner thought that the film "has some big flaws, but it's fun and cute rom-com with heart." She harshly criticized Thurman's performance (dubbing it "career-worst"), her Texan accent and the writing of her character, but praised Zakhar Perez's and Galitzine's performances. Sarner also took note of resemblance between Prince Henry and Prince Harry; both princes are spares and their romances with their American lovers lead to strained relationships with their older brothers.[34] Jessie Thompson of The Independent awarded it three out of five stars, summarizing it as "wry and witty at first, but then becomes unstuck as it enters into soap opera mode", additionally drawing comparisons with The Crown and Prince Harry's media tour, and taking note of an "air of liberal fantasy to it all". He characterized the casting of Zakhar Perez and Galitzine as "absurdly [good] ... like cartoon Disney princes made into humans", and Thurman's performance as "delightfully camp".[35]

The Guardian's Benjamin Lee awarded it two out of five stars and dubbed it "well-intentioned yet listless", writing: "Red, White and Royal Blue just isn't the fun, brain-disengaged romp it could have been, any praise going toward intention rather then execution."[36] BBC's Louis Staples thought that the "creaky" formulaic script "often sounds like it was written by ChatGPT", criticized the film's overt leaning into "fictionalised specifics of Anglo-American relations" and into stereotypes of the British and Americans. He negatively compared it to The Princess Diaries (2001), Single All the Way (2021), The Knight Before Christmas (2019), Fire Island (2022) and Bros (2022), before concluding: "If you're looking for a film about beautiful men with perfect hair and sculpted abs, which doesn't demand too much from you, then it might be for you. But if you're expecting it to be in the grade of romcoms that are laugh-out-loud hilarious and actually say something interesting about relationships – or anything beyond lazy clichés – then you'll be royally disappointed."[37]

• Red, White & Royal Blue at IMDb