RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE is a Bridgerton-adjacent piece of mildly entertaining rom-com fluff that satisfies our need for cheesy romantic dramas where love triumphs over bigotry, everyone looks pretty, and sex scenes are steamy but still reassuringly safe. I gave it an extra point for including a sensible conversation about safe gay sex and for featuring an inter-racial gay couple because representation matters.
The unreasonably pretty (but apparently not gay - how do we feel about that?) Nicholas Galitzine stars as a closeted gay British royal prince who falls for the Latine bisexual son of the US President (Taylor Zakhar Perez). Naturally they start out hating each other but that soon changes as they are forced to spend time with each other as their countries negotiate a trade deal. The POTUS is amusingly played by Uma Thurman with an insane southern accent, and her husband by Clifton Collins Jr - where has he been? They are super supportive of their son and his political ambitions. This stands in sharp contrast to the homophobic British King, amusingly played by the real-life gay Stephen Fry. In both cases I find that the movie glosses over the political and social backlash each family would face. But I guess that's not what this film really is.
At any rate, this really is not a work of art, but it is fun enough and important. Kudos to Tony award winning playwright and debut feature director Matthew Lopez for getting this on screen.
RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE is rated R and has a running time of 118 minutes. It was released last weekend on Amazon Prime Video.
No comments:
Post a Comment