Red, White & Royal Blue

What is Red, White & Royal Blue about?

Alex Claremont-Diaz, son of the first woman President of the United States, has a long-running public feud with Prince Henry of Wales. After the two of them destroy a very expensive royal wedding cake, their staffs force them into a photo-op friendship, which becomes a private correspondence, which becomes something neither of them can politically afford. Matthew Lopez directs his own adaptation of Casey McQuiston's novel with Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine, and he keeps the book's central trick: the politics are a wish rather than a prediction, and the film knows it. What it gets right is the specific fear of a person whose coming out is also a national event, and the way Henry's version of the closet is inherited rather than chosen. It is glossy and it is a fantasy, and it is also the film most people name as the one that made them go looking for more queer romance. Watch it for the first hour of banter and stay for the letters.

It is the comfort watch of the modern queer canon, and there is no shame in that.

Is Red, White & Royal Blue based on a book?

Yes. It is adapted from Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston.