Red, White & Royal Blue is a 2023 romance comedy movie directed by Matthew Lopez as his first directorial debut based on a book written by Casey McQuiston’s bestselling 2019 novel with the same name. The main leads of the movie are Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez), who is the son of the first female U.S. President (Uma Thurman), and the British Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine). This movie explores sexuality, public duty, and personal originality. Alex is the son of the president of America, who is called President Ellen Claremont (played by Uma Thurman).
Alex Claremont and Prince Henry have been rivals since they first met at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Their first meeting was frosty because Prince Henry was acting rudely and asking his personal butler to take Alex away after they had a handshake, fueling their long-term rivalry. Fast forward to Alex attending Prince Philip’s wedding with his mom, the president, Ellen Claremont. The royal family greets people at the wedding, and Prince Henry ignores Alex, which angers him.
Alex grabs liquor from the server and drinks it till he is drunk when he spots Henry in the crowd. He went to Henry all giggly and happy, but Henry was not feeling the same way. Henry, trying to not cause a scene, talked with Alex. He placed the liquor on the cake table and asked him if he was enjoying the wedding, to which Alex replied yes. Henry was about to leave when Alex called him. Alex got the liquor from the table on which the cake was on, getting buttercream on his glass and hands.
Alex hid his hands behind his back and tried to hide them from the prince. When the prince turned around, Alex insulted him when the prince was trying to leave. Alex put his hand, which was covered with buttercream, on Prince Henry’s expensive suit, and when the prince realized what happened, Alex tried whipping the cream off Henry’s coat, but it was making it worse.
Prince Philip saw what was happening, and Henry pushed Alex away from him, and so did others at the wedding. Alex attempted to help Henry fix it, but Henry didn’t want that. Henry accidentally pushed Alex, making him bump into the cake. Henry tried stopping the cake from falling, but Alex grabbed his coat; he fell, and so did the cake. The cake fell on them, intriguing people to take pictures, post it on social media, and write reports on the incident.
Meeting after the “Cakegate incident” at the wedding, Forced to be friends for the press
The US president attended this event to have a trading connection with Great Britain, but after the cake incident, Britain refused to trade with the US. This incident enraged the president, the reason being her son ruined everything; thus, she made him go to Great Britain to fix the issue. The president was working with the royal family to fix the situation by fabricating a story about the two princes, Henry and Alex, being friends who haven’t seen each other for a very long time.
The president booked a one-way flight for her son to England, Prince Henry’s palace, where reporters were waiting for the both of them to arrive. They did the interview and told the reporter that they are friends. After the interview they went to a children’s hospital to save face in the media. A false fire alarm (fireworks) went off, and their bodyguards locked them in a small closet together while they tried to see what was going on.
During that time they have a heartfelt conversation and talk about their past. Prince Henry apologized for being rude in the past, and they agreed to continue their fake friendship for the press and get each other’s phone number. After this incident, they parted ways and started texting, emailing, and talking to each other on the phone every chance they got. Henry begins to open up about his life, and their fake friendship turns into an actual one.
Their developing feelings lead to a night together after they went to a bar with friends, where they hooked up. They wanted to make “friends with benefits” but eventually actually started having feelings for each other. They started to have a secret relationship until they got caught by the assistant of the president, which led Alex to tell his mother about the whole relationship. Surprisingly, the mom was okay with the relationship, and in most queer movies, the parents are never okay with their kids liking the same gender or being in the LGBTQ+ community.
Alex’s mother was going for a re-election, and they were good with most of the stats except for Texas, so Alex went to Texas to help win votes in Texas. When they started to get more votes from people in Texas, someone wrote about Alex and Prince Henry being in a relationship, tanking the voting. People started not to vote for Alex’s mom. After the article went public, the royal family got to know about this, and the article had their text messages and emails that they had with each other.
Prince Henry called for a family meeting with Alex, Prince Philip, Prince Henry, and their sister. The grandfather told them to deny the relationship, but they refused to do that as they loved each other dearly. The meeting went nowhere because the two didn’t want to deny their relationship and they came out to the public about the two being in a relationship. Alex’s mom won the election in Texas, and people of England accepted Henry for who he is, and the movie ended happily.
