My Thoughts on When to Make a Sequel

In an article that came out today, the head of Amazon Studios said that there might be a sequel to The Idea of You. While I loved the movie (check out my review here), I am vehemently against the idea. The movie told a complete story and does not need a sequel that I can see. Right now, any sequel would just seem to be a money grab, which generally end up being bad movies. You may ask why I am against a sequel here and for a sequel to Red, White, and Royal Blue, and that would be a valid question. I want to explain why I think the two are fundamentally different when it comes to sequel possibilities.

First off, as I said The Idea of You told a complete story. The story was about an older woman getting into a relationship with a younger man and the sexism and ageism involved when their relationship went public. They split and got together in the end. If they did a sequel, what would the story be? Would we rehash the same sexism and ageism? I don't see a good story that maintains the quality of the first movie. Sure, they might get married or something, but would that story be worthy of the first movie? I am not really seeing how. Also, you'd have to get over Solene's probable issues about getting married given how Daniel treated her.

As for RWRB, the way the story was told made it clear that more could come. First off, while it did tell the story of how Henry and Alex became a couple, it wasn't complete in the same way The Idea of You was. The ending was an end to a part of their story, not their complete story. Also, Casey has written more about their life after the book ended, so there is obviously more to tell there. The Idea of You, on the other hand, doesn't have a sequel and; having read the book and seen the movie; I don't see the story continuing. The ending to both (as I said above) was more definitive and felt like a period, not a comma or semicolon. There's also the fact that Casey is directly involved in writing the second movie and, given how protective she is of RWRB, I feel more secure knowing that (talked about it here).

Basically, I don't like the ideas of sequels being written unless the sequel can add to the first movie. This is different from movies where there are "sequels" that really have nothing to do with the original (the Cinderella Story movies spring to mind here), which are a whole other issue I won't deal with here. A sequel should organically continue the story that the first started. There should be some thread from the first movie that makes the sequel work. And in The Idea of You (as I said above) there is no such thread. Everything was wrapped up nice and neat and tidy. When a movie has to retcon a change or in some other way artificially produce a sequel, it inevitably is worse than the original and drags the original down with it. And that is something that I absolutely *DO NOT* want to happen to The Idea of You, it means entirely too much to me.

If the writers can somehow come up with a story that actually makes sense, I might watch the movie if it has Anne and Nick. But if it ends up being some sort of "sequel" (a la the Cinderella Story franchise) or if it ends up being a forced story, I won't watch and will pretend it doesn't exist.

I am begging Amazon to please not just make sequels to make sequels. Don't cheapen a deeply meaningful and beautiful movie as part of a cash grab. I know they are a company and motivated by money, but making a sequel to The Idea of You would be a massive mistake. 

Some Thoughts About The Idea Of You

I've seen The Idea of You twice since it came out. Normally, I am not interested in cishet romances because they are a dime a dozen. Every time I turn around, I am running into a new one. They're nice, but they don't speak to me personally as a queer person. So, I tend to watch queer romances and I enjoy them a lot more.

My main exception to this rule is The Princess Diaries and The Princess Diaries 2 with Anne Hathaway. I see them as a trans story, which helps my enjoyment. Add to that the fact that I love Anne Hathaway and that these are (IMNSHO) the perfect romances, and I will gladly watch them. The other, more recent, exception is cishet romances with Nicholas Galitizine. I've watched every movie he's been in (still have 2 TV shows to watch at some point) and have enjoyed him in every one. There were one or two that I didn't like, but those weren't about him, they were about the story or the other actors. So when I heard there was a movie where these two were the romantic leads, I was instantly intrigued and decided to watch it.

I did read the book after I watched the movie and I have to say that I was not impressed. It wasn't a bad book, in fact it was in many respects a fairly standard romance (albeit with a non-traditional ending) with lots of fairly descriptive sex scenes. I was hoping that my love of Nicholas and Anne would translate to a love of the book, but that didn't happen at all. I finished the book and will probably never read it again. I will continue to watch the movie though, not as many times as Red, White, and Royal Blue, but a few times a year.

Ok, now that we've got the preliminaries out of the way, let's talk about what I loved about the movie. Anne and Nicholas have amazing chemistry. Watching the two of them together was absolutely electric. Bothe of them can communicate a lot with just a look and they've both mastered the art of tearing up on a moment's notice, so watching the two of them play off of each other was just fun. As Solene, Anne was in her best form showing shades of Mia with her awkwardness and her spine of steel that she can draw on. And as Hayes, Nicholas showed his mettle with the warmness and empathy of Henry while also showing some real playfulness and a desire to get what he wants.

I will say that the desire to get what he wants was a little offputting the first time they kissed in Solene's house. She said and indicated a certain level of discomfort with the kissing and he kept on pressing forward. I'm not going to say that it rose to eh level of assault, but it definitely made me uncomfortable because he wasn't respecting what she was saying until she physically pushed him away. I know this is a romantic trope, but it is one that I am not fond of and that makes me uncomfortable.

I appreciated how the movie showed the difficulties Solene was facing as a 40-year-old woman in a relationship with a 24-year-old guy. Watching the difficulties she was facing, I got really upset because of the complete and utter sexism and misogyny. If the situations were reversed and she was a 40-year-old man in a relationship with a 24-year-old woman, then people would be cheering him on and talking about how it showed how virile and desirable he is. But because Solene is a woman, most people act like this is the worst thing ever. To his credit, Hayes calls out this disparity when Solene brings in up in a fight when she is getting ready to leave France alone.  I will say that at the point where they have this fight, their relationship isn't public, so most of the issues are there because Solene knows how people will react and because Hayes' friends are not treating her very well. 

When they get back together and their relationship goes public, the misogyny that Solene feared shows itself in full force. The comments and headlines that we see are truly awful. They say that she is a bad mom because she's dating Hayes. People are coming up to her and telling her that their' little girls, who had a crush on Hayes were heartbroken. Sorry, but this is the stupidest thing to say. I mean, I'm sorry that your child who had a crush on a man was hurt, but to blame Solene for that is the most ridiculous thing ever. And her ex-husband was the absolute worst. He cheated on her, then divorced her and married the woman he cheated on her with. And he has the audacity to think that he has any right to talk with her about her entirely appropriate relationship with Hayes? He had one good point in that the whole thing was negatively impacting their daughter Izzy, but the way he just came at her and the way he acted as if he had any sort of leg to stand on was infuriating.

And Izzy is the reason the two of them broke up. Not that Izzy asked her mom to break up with Hayes, but all of the attention and awfulness was too much for her to handle. She had students at her school asking for a pic of Hayes' dick. And a guy she likes asked her to tell Solene that he turned 18 in a month. Yes, it may be typical high school stuff, but it was beyond awful too. So I can't blame Solene for stepping away from the relationship at that point. Yes, he made her happy and she made him happy, but the negative impacts on Izzy were too much for Solene to deal with.

I loved the fact that they changed the ending from what it was in the book. In the book, Solene and Hayes break up and remain broken up. In the movie, after she breaks up with him, he goes to her house where they kiss one last time and he asks her to reconsider her decision in 5 years after Izzy is out of college. She agrees, but insists that if either of them find something before then that they take it. So 5 years later, Hayes is now a solo act and visits her art gallery and they seem to be getting back together. I get that some people may prefer the books ending because it is a commentary on women being expected to give everything up for people around them. But I preferred the movie because it said that while women may be asked to (or need to) give something up now, it doesn't mean that they need to give it up forever. And it demonstrates that love is not something that can just be denied, it will wait as needed. Yes, I'm a sap. Deal with it.

In addition to both of their acting, I love Nicholas' voice. He has a gorgeous singing voice and the songs August Moon and Hayes Campbell sang were quite fun and enjoyable. I've had "Guard Down", "Taste", and "Dance Before We Walk" going through my head off and on since I saw the movie. Yeah, super catchy.

So that's it. I will be talking about the movie on my podcast Queerly Popular on a special episode on Thursday, June 27th. I'll go more in depth on the plot and expand on what I've written here. Check it out if you enjoy my thoughts.

Some Thoughts About the Red, White, and Royal Blue Sequel

 I woke up this morning to a tweet that there was going to be a sequel to Red, White, and Royal Blue. At first, I thought it was someone online playing a joke or doing wishful thinking, but as I looked briefly and found this article which confirmed that the sequel was in fact happening. Here is what we know for sure:

[1] Matthew Lopez and Casey McQuiston are writing the script.

[2] Nicholas Galitzine and Taylor Zakhar Perez are returning as Henry and Alex

And that's it. I have some thoughts and wanted to put them out there. First, I want to talk about a couple of plot possibilities. Then I want to look at some things I do or do not want to see in the sequel.

First, the plot. I really see two probable plots.

The first probable plot is that the movie follow Alex and Henry through their courtship and ends with their getting married. If they do this, they can incorporate the bonus chapter that Casey appended to the collector's edition of RWRB that came out in 2022. As a dramatic arc, they can have Henry and Alex learning how to navigate a public relationship when Alex wants to be in the public eye in order to get involved in politics and Henry very much does not want that. I think that would be fun to watch. They could have Henry abdicate, very much like he does in the bonus chapter, and have him run the queer youth shelters, again like he plans on doing in the book. It wouldn't be hard to have a brief bit of exposition that Percy signed over shelters for Henry to run shortly after the first movie.

The second probable plot is that Alex and Henry are already married and we get to watch them adjust to life as husbands. I find this one to be a bit less likely, because I think people would rise up in revolt if we don't get to see the FirstPrince wedding. Presumably, at this point, they would have learned how to live together and how to navigate their differences, so I'm not sure where the drama would come from here, unless they do some sort of artificially created drama, which would annoy me no end. I see this as the less likely possibility.

So now for things I do and do not want to see.

First thing that I have to say here is that I am a little apprehensive about doing a sequel. The fact that Casey and Matthew are writing it allay a lot of my fears, but I really don't want there to be a sequel just to have a sequel. I know Casey has said something similar in the past (at least about the book) and that FirstPrince is their baby, so the fact that they are involved in writing the sequel gives me hope. I really just want them to take the time to write a sequel worthy of the original and respectful of the fans. 

I do not want there to be artificially created drama like a love triangle or someone trying to get between them. That would just be annoying and stupid. The first movie revolved around Alex realizing he's bi and then he and Henry trying to figure out how to have a relationship as public figures. The drama all felt natural and unforced. If they throw in an old, dead trope like a love triangle or something, it will completely ruin their relationship. There has to be drama in order to have a movie, but the drama should center around the two of them trying to figure out how to live together and make their dreams work together.  We don't need soap opera or teen drama style storylines, just the everyday life of a power couple.

I want them to address the one question that the original never answered: did Miguel Ramos hack the emails or was he just notified about the hack? It is suggested that he was involved, but never answered. Again, this is something that could be addressed very quickly in some exposition.

I think they need to address what Henry does regarding his royal duties. We know that he does not like being in the public eye the way he has been and that he wants to be more of a private person. Given that and given Alex's stated desire to get involved in politics, I really see navigating this as the best possible plot for the sequel. It doesn't have to be (and should not be) a bunch of huge arguments, but rather a series of discussions about the boundaries of each of them and how they can work together without creating big issues between them. Again, nothing artificial or heightened, just normal relationship stuff that the two of them need to work out. Any heightened drama could be related to their wedding, which (given their stations and their families) could be quite amusing and fun. And it would be great to watch Uma Thurman and Stephen Fry butt heads.

Honestly, that's all I have right now. I expect the movie will be out in late 2025 at the earliest, but 2026 is more likely. It depends on how much has been written. There shouldn't need to be a ton of casting, so that should shorten up the timeframe somewhat. 

My Ideas for a Red, White, and Royal Blue Limited Series

 If you've read what I've said so far about the Red, White, and Royal Blue film, you know that I think it would have been so much better if they had made an 8- to 10-episode limited series rather than a 2 hour movie. It would have given the characters more room to grow and develop and would have allowed them to be more faithful to the book in terms of plotlines and characters. I think that most of the big problems with the movie would have been solved with this change.

I suspect that the big reason they didn't make a limited series is it would probably be more expensive because you would have had to pay people for more work, it would have taken longer to write and record, etc. And I get that, but given the weaknesses present in the movie, it would have been worth it IMNSHO.

All that said, what I really want to do is to sketch out how I would pace out the episodes if a limited series were to be done. I am basing it off of the book which I haven't read in a bit, so I may be missing some incidents or forget which incidents were only in the movie. These won't be detailed, but hopefully enough to give people an idea of what would happen. I don't have any screen writing experience or training, so these may not be the best places to break in some respects. If you have alternate ideas, I would be very interested to hear them. 

Episode 1- Introduce all the characters, the wedding, end with the cake falling

Episode 2- Alex and Henry are forced to pretend to be friends, Alex visits England, the hospital

Episode 3- Alex and Henry start texting, Thanksgiving turkey, New Year's party, end with Henry kissing Alex

Episode 4- Alex trying to figure out what the kiss with Henry meant; Alex, Nora, and June invited to work on the presidential campaign; the British prime minister visits; Alex and Henry kiss in the Red Room and have sex in Alex's bedroom

Episode 5- Alex and Henry continue to meet and hook-up, smutty emails go back and forth, Luna announces he's Richard's VP pick, Alex and Henry meet at the DNC, end with Zahra finding Henry in Alex's room

Episode 6- Alex comes out to his mom and is fired from the campaign, the PowerPoint presentation, Alex and Henry visit Texas, end with Henry sneaking away from Texas

Episode 7- Alex tries to figure out what went wrong and flies to England to get Henry back, the museum, end with the emails being hacked

Episode 8- Nora works to find out who hacked the emails, Alex flies to London to be with Henry, Henry and his mother confront the monarch, President Claremont wins reelection, end with Henry and Alex visiting Alex's childhood home

I did leave out a few things: Nora and June acting as beards and Alex and Henry being photographed together kissing in a car being the big ones. I couldn't quite remember where they were in the book, but they could probably be thrown in where appropriate. And obviously there were a lot of smaller events (Alex visiting Luna in the Senate Office Building, Henry's interactions with the presidential campaign staff, etc.) that I didn't list but can be placed where appropriate. I was going for a more high-level overview of the series as a whole.

Anyhow, let me know if you have any thoughts. Enjoy!

Some Thoughts about Red, White, & Royal Blue

 Ok, now that I've had a chance to get the issues with the differences between the book and movie forms of Red, White, & Royal Blue out of my system, I went back and rewatched the movie and discovered that I was able to really enjoy it a lot more than I did the first time. Since I wasn't so ensnared by the differences, I was really able to just enjoy the movie for what it was. This time, I felt all the feelings I was expecting to feel the first time.

Before I get started talking about the movie, I have to address some people online who were saying the the movie was just like the book. No, it absolutely was not. If you say that, you are either being dishonest or you didn't actually read the book. Yes, the core of the book (the love story between Henry and Alex) was there as where most of the major beats between them, but there was so much else that was changed. In interviews, Matthew Michael Lopez (the director and co-writer) said that he was ruthless about cutting out anything not directly related to the love story because he wanted to focus on that. So the movie kept the heart of the book, but missed a whole lot of other things.

So let's start off with the fact that, on the surface, Red, White, & Royal Blue is nothing revolutionary. It closely followed all of the rom-com tropes, especially of similar films that came out in the late 90s and early 2000s like Chasing Liberty or The Princess Diaries. That being said, looking only at the surface misses a hell of a lot. The reason that there are queer movies coming out in the last few years that closely resemble movies that came out years ago is, in part, because we couldn't make movies like this until recently. Because we weren't able to get movies like this widely released before relatively recently, we didn't get to see characters like ourselves meet and fall in love. We didn't get to see rom-coms like this where 2 queer characters go from friends-to-enemies. We didn't get this representation. And that is why this movie, however much it may have adhered to tropes and to well-worn paths. We are finally getting these things that cishet people have gotten for decades and take for granted. When Alex was talking to Henry about why he wanted to go into politics (to make a difference and to show other Latino kids that there was someone like them in power), it spoke to the importance of queer representation too. Seeing people who are like you and seeing them struggling to come out and be accepted shows you that it isn't just you. I also loved that the director was quite firm that this is a "queer love story" not a "gay love story". Even though Henry and Alex are both men, Alex clearly defines himself as being bi, not gay and we need to be sure that we do not erase that.

Once I was able to get past the differences between the book and the movie, I loved the movie. Yes, it was filled with tropes, but (as I've said before multiple times) I love a good romance and don't mind tropes. Watching Henry and Alex go from misunderstanding each other to a grudging friendship to falling in lust to falling in love was all sorts of fun. There were some hilarious lines from every main character and the chemistry between Taylor and Nick was absolutely perfect. Since the movie cut out everything that was not directly related to their love story, without the right actors, this movie would have fallen apart. And they got the right actors here.

Let's start with Alex. Taylor did a great job walking a fine line between being cocky and being obnoxious. Alex has self-confidence and assurance but not so much that he turns into an asshole. Alex is super extroverted and wears his feelings on his sleeve for the most part. There are times where he successfully hides things (generally from the reporter or when he is doing campaign/public stuff), but otherwise he tends to show what he is feeling. When he's in the hospital closet with Henry and explaining where his dislike comes from, it was cute. That was really the first crack in the wall between the two of them. Once Henry knew that his offhand comment about leaving hurt Alex, who felt like Henry could have helped him adjust to public life, the two relaxed a little around each other. And when Henry kissed him at the New Years' party, you could see him looking like a deer in the headlights. He knew what just happened, but he was blindsided and just trying to figure out what to do. And then there was his talk with Nora where he finally put the pieces together. She just laid it all out there for him and he was finally able to put those pieces together. I also loved seeing Alex take more of a direct role in his mom's campaign by going to Texas to implement his ideas. That was fun and gave us a chance to see Henry be sweet and supportive as Alex confused to some feelings that he didn't beling there.  

I'm going to skip to near the end, because most stuff in between was about them as a couple, and I want to talk about that separately. What I want to get to here is the outing of Alex and Henry. This was the one part I was dissatisfied with. In the book, there was a clear villain and explanation about why the emails were linked. We also got a chance to see the emails which had a bunch of great queer history and literary references as well as some great nicknames and spicy content. The emails in the movie didn't have that and were much fewer in number. Also, they never revealed who hacked their emails and why. It was insinuated that the reporter was somehow involved, but it was never outright stated. It just feels like they could have worked in a line somewhere to confirm who did hack the emails and their reasoning, which left the storyline just dangling there, which I did not like.

Having said all that, I have to focus on the Politico reporter. Having revealed that the first article came out about 2 and a half hours after the emails were leaked does strongly suggest that he was involved somehow. He saw Henry meet Alex in the hotel bar at the DNC, so he may have suspected something and gone on from there. The fact that he had made out with Alex in a hot tub and has approached him at least two other times to see if Alex wanted to meet again, suggests that he has feelings of some sort for Alex, making me think that he did what he did out of spite or because he felt spurned. And his reasoning for writing all the articles and why the hacking was ok was complete and total bullshit. Yes, Alex is a public figure because of his role in his mother's campaign. But when he said that there was "a pattern of obfuscation around this relationship and it is my job to explain and contextualize it", that was enough to drive me up the wall. That is clearly a justification for shitty behavior and it is one that people have used for years. The only obfuscation was 2 men, who were in love with each other and wanted to not tell the world about it. Why is that anyone else's business? Answer: IT'S NOT! This is all a part of the old idea that a lot of people seem to have where everyone who is queer owes it to the world to come out because otherwise they are lying. And to have this come from a queer journalist (ok, never identified, but the way he was chasing Alex shows he isn't straight) is particularly galling. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, deserves the right to come out when they are ready and to choose how they want to come out, even if they are a public figure. No one every has the right to out another person. EVER. EVER. EVER. Purposefully outing someone is the one thing I find unforgivable. I don't care what a person has done or how big of a public figure they are, everyone has the right to reveal their personal truths when they are ready. Alex's speech after he and Henry are outed was absolutely beautiful. He was clear about what should have happened and why respecting people's privacy is important.

So let's go to Henry now. He is caught in the middle of a Situation and doesn't see a way out until he and Alex fall in love. He is gay and he is a prince. He has a family telling him that he has to fit into an old, antiquated box that is circumscribed by tradition and ideas but he wants to be who he truly is. He wants to be with Alex but can't be with him openly because that just isn't done. So he has walls up and while he lets Alex in, the walls go back up once he realizes that his and Alex's feelings for each other are very serious. Nick did a masterful job at letting us into Henry's inner thoughts through his facial expressions and small mannerisms. If you watch his eyes before he starts to let his guard down, you can catch glimpses of his feelings, particularly his intense feelings for Alex. He lets annoyance and amusement show just a bit in his eyes when he is reacting to some of Alex's more outrageous lines and stunts early on. And at the New Years' party, you can see the hurt and disappointment cross his face when he sees Alex kissing girls when the clock hits midnight and when Alex is dancing with someone else. And when he let his guard down in Paris when he suggested that he and Alex make love, you saw the love and the passion that he had for Alex. That and the fight when Alex came to England to get him back were Henry at his most vulnerable and it was lovely to see. When the emails were leaked, you saw him just be devastated, particularly when he couldn't talk with Alex. And when he got the phone from Shaan to get the phone, you saw the trepidation and fear on his face about who it might be. When he heard Alex say "Baby?", you saw him visibly relax and go right back to being vulnerable and in love. The change was quite remarkable. And I loved it when he stood up to the King. It took him seeing that the King was wrong and seeing the crowds to really stiffen his spine, but he was resisting even before that. He just needed the public support to be really able to successfully resist what the King wanted.

As for them as a couple, it was such a lovely progression. When they kissed in the Red Room to hooking up in Alex's room to hooking up at the polo match to Paris, you got to see them go from an almost animalistic lust and need for sex to something much deeper. When we saw them kiss before Paris, it was just absolutely lust and not a whole lot else. They just went at each other with a ferocity that was really, really hot. And there wasn't a lot of foreplay, they went right from kissing to giving each other blowjobs. Nothing romantic, just wanting sex. There's nothing wrong with that, and it is a very logical first step to where they were headed. Once they spent more time together, the night in Paris was quite romantic. First, Henry suggesting that they make love and Alex gently teasing him for saying that and then admitting that he didn't know how to make love with another guy. And the joke from Henry about Alex being in good hands because Henry went to an English boarding school was quite funny, but didn't break the mood, which I really appreciated. Watching the two of them gently undress each other, slowly kiss each other, and then caress each other before having sex was so beautiful. It was just like a sex scene you might see in a straight romance, which I appreciated. And when Alex penetrated Henry, the look on Nick's race was pretty realistic, assuming you're someone who likes bottoming. You could tell from his face the moment Alex entered him because he got a look of wonder and enjoyment. The whole thing was romantic and just perfect.

One of the greatest scenes was in the hotel when Zahra caught Henry in the closet. Aside from the sheer and utter hilarity of finding a gay man in a closet, watching her realize what is going on and then trying to figure out how to deal with it was funny. She realized that they weren't going to stay apart, but she also needed to figure out how to not damage the presidential campaign. The commentary throughout the whole movie about the homophobia that runs rampant in society was not terribly subtle. If Henry or Alex had been a woman, the whole thing would have easily explained and no one would have blinked an eye. But the fact that they are both men was what caused the problem. And that is just ridiculous and is absolute homophobia. That's why they felt like they had to hide things and why the reporter was able to "justify" talking about their emails. If there wasn't rampant homophobia in society and they were able to just be who they are, there would have been no need for secrets.

I also loved all the scenes between Alex and his mom. Uma played a no-nonsense woman who was (for the most part) able to clearly delineate between her maternal duties and her official duties. The one time where things got a bit blurry was in connection to the Texas strategy Alex devised and that was because she wasn't told about it and Alex felt super passionate about the whole thing. But other than that, she was able to be supportive when Alex needed her. When Alex told her that he met someone and it could impact the campaign, she had a great line wondering if she was a Republican. Not fond of the assumption of straightness there, but I think it was understandable because Alex didn't seem to have really had any public indications that he had feeling for any men before this. When he said it was Henry, I loved that she sat for a minute as that statement hit her and then immediately got pizza so they could talk. I do wish we had gotten the PowerPoint presentation that was in the book and the line about not having had time was not the best explanation. I also loved that she went all mom and made sure he was being safe. It embarrassed Alex, but was totally cute.

Most everyone else had pretty minor roles. Alex's dad was supportive and didn't blink an eye when he found out Henry and Alex were together. Nora was supportive and helped Alex when he needed emotional support when trying to figure out Henry (a role she got because June was cut out of the movie). Bea filled a similar support role for Henry while his brother and grandfather were just homophobic and not at all supportive.

I loved all the lovely emotional scenes between Henry and Alex, particularly the scene in the museum. The scene preceding that, when they fought, showed Henry at his most vulnerable. He was really unsure about how to proceed given the fact that he had reached a fork in the road where his duties and his desires seemed to be at war with each other. What he needed was a new paradigm that would allow him to be in love with Alex while also being a prince. The museum scene was when Henry finally let all the walls fall down and let Alex completely in. When he was explaining how he loved to just disappear among the statues and how he wanted to dance with the man he loved while in the museum, you could see him absolutely just do everything he could to let Alex in. And when they danced? I cried happy tears because it was so beautiful.

I also kept cackling at the sexual innuendo between the two of them or the visual puns in the movie in general. When they were walking back into the dinner after making out in the Red Room, their conversation about henry being hard (and the shot of the extremely phallic Washington Monument) was hilarious. And then there was the scene in Paris where Henry revealed his full name and Alex said that he thought "Alex Gabriel Claremont-Diaz was a mouthful." Henry's response ("He is.") said completely deadpan and followed by a mischievous glance was absolutely hilarious. Their delivery of these lines just really helped them land.

I also loved the scene where Henry and Alex were talking on the phone when Alex had the turkey in his room. When we saw the two of them together on Alex's bed facing each other, it was really cute. I also adored the text exchanges, especially when you saw Henry appear on the screen to deliver his lines.

And I would be remiss to not talk about the very beginning which culminated in CakeGate. It was so different from the picture I had in my brain from reading the book, but that is ok. Watching an increasingly drunk Alex confronting an annoyed Henry, you would have known disaster was coming even if you knew almost nothing about the movie. And when the cake fell in slow motion and we got a look at all the individual faces? Priceless.

Now for a couple of things I would change. First, I would have preferred an 8 to 10-episode limited series because that would have given us the chance to have more characters from the book and would also have allowed all the other characters a bit more of a chance to develop. I do get that trying to turn a 421 page book into a 2-hour movie is impossible without making a ton of cuts is impossible, but I wonder if making the choice to do a 2-hour movie was the right choice. Second, as I said above, I would have preferred closure on the who question about who hacked the emails and why. Third, I so wanted to see the PowerPoint presentation about the geopolitical ramifications of dating a prince. That would have just been hilarious. And finally, there was a scene in the trailer of Alex and Henry in a kitchen eating that didn't make it into the movie. I hate it when studios do that. If a scene isn't in a movie, don't put it in the trailer or anything. I was looking for that scene and it just never showed and that annoyed me.

To sum up, I do really love this movie. For me to enjoy it, I needed to be able to separate it from the book, but once I was able to do so, I found that it was charming and absolutely lovely. There were a few things that annoyed me, but for the most part I loved it. Seen it twice already and plan to watch it at least once or twice a week for at least the next month or so.

Some Thoughts About Differences Between the Red, White, and Royal Blue Movie and Book

I had the opportunity to see Red, White, & Royal Blue on Wednesday, August 9th at a theatre in DC. I've read the book several times and have been really excited to see the movie. While I enjoyed the movie, I do have some mixed feelings about it because there are *SIGNIFICANT* differences between the movie and the book. I know that anytime you make a book into a movie or TV show, there are going to be differences, but the magnitude and number of differences are definitely giving me some thoughts and feelings. I intend to watch the movie at least 2-3 more times in the next week or two, but I want to get my thoughts written down because that will help clear my thinking. So please bear with me because I'll be doing so using this post.

First, let's start by being completely clear that the movie was a lovely rom-com. I loved the characters, I loved the pace, the jokes, and everything else. If I hadn't read the book, I would be singing its praises to the highest heavens. However, because I read the book, there were things I was hoping to see that weren't in the movie. Characters and whole plotlines were removed, a plotline and a character were added, and some characters and plotlines were radically altered from the book.  I want to start by talking about the differences and then get into what I loved. I also want to say that I suspect that the changes were almost entirely due to time. The book is 421 pages, so trying to get that into a 2-hour movie is difficult. It seems that they cut out anything that was not directly related to the Alex/Henry romance, which does make sense to me. Personally, I would love to see it as an 8–10-episode limited series, which would allow us something much closer to the book.

[1] June and Rafael were not in the movie at all. I'm not sure if June was a huge loss, but Rafael did feel like a pretty big loss. His whole plot about being a double agent to expose Richards was excised. In fact, Richards was pretty much just a person running against President Claremont-Diaz, you heard of him, but you never got anything more. In the book Richards was a MAGA-type politician who had his campaign hack into and leak Alex and Henry's emails. While this leak did happen in the movie, they never revealed who did it, but did imply that a new character (a journalist Alex kissed [and maybe hooked up with?] a few times) might have been behind the leak. I can't say I was fond of that ambiguity. I would have preferred we learned who actually leaked them. The other reason I missed Rafael is that he was a mentor to Alex. I loved the scenes of him and Alex talking in his Senate office in the book.

[2] Alex's parents are still married in the movie. In the book, they are divorced, and this has led Alex to not be super into romance. While their being divorced wasn't vital to the book, I didn't see any reason to change it other than maybe saving money on a different set or something. And they also made Alex's dad a Congressman rather than a Senator. Again, not a earth shaking change, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense as to why they made the change.

[3] Nora's part was severely curtailed. In the book, she is bisexual and had had a short-lived prior relationship with Alex. She got some of the stuff June did in the book when it came to supporting Alex, but she was such a minimal presence in the movie. She was also heavily involved in exposing that the Richards campaign leaked the emails in the book, so when that plot was cut, she lost a lot of stuff that she did.

[4] Henry's mom was absent from his life in both the book and the movie, but for entirely different reasons. In the book, she is depressed and not able to function well, only pulling herself out of the depression at the end of the book to stand up to the Queen and show that the people supported Henry. In the movie, she is working with a non-profit in Africa and is never around. While I appreciated that they had Henry stand up for himself in the movie, I missed having his mom there to help him out. And speaking of the Royal Family, Bea's character was also very much changed from the book. In the book, she has a substance use disorder as a result of her dad dying. In the movie, which she is barely in, she is just there to be a support for Henry.

[5] The new journalist (sorry, forgot his name) was an added character who seemed to be in there to be someone to be something of an antagonist but not be a villain. Alex mentions that he made out with him (naked!) in a hot tub and a couple of other times but wasn't really into him otherwise. It almost felt like the hacked and leaked emails were a spurned lover sort of thing, but they never stated that for sure, so I could be wrong.

[6] In the book, Alex didn't really seem to have a clue he was into guys. I seem to remember him kissing a guy or two, but nothing beyond that, so when Henry kissed him, it initiated a massive sexuality identity crisis spiral. In the movie, we see him figure it out pretty fast after talking with Nora once. I think it would have been more realistic for him to have needed more time to figure it out, but he just has a conversation and then acts like he has it all figured out. Coming out to his mom was hard, but that was more about him being afraid it would impact her campaign negatively than any fear that she would reject him.

[7] While Alex works for his mom's campaign in both the book and the movie, the circumstances are wildly different. In the book, he works in her campaign headquarters doing behind-the-scenes stuff (think it was some strategy, but don't remember offhand). In the movie, he goes to Texas to personally implement the memo he wrote about how the campaign can flip Texas blue. This is a change I definitely didn't mind. It showed Alex's interest in politics and laid the groundwork for good drama on election night when everything came down to Texas and how well his ideas worked.

[8] They cut down on the number of emails and all of the hilarious queer historical references which disappointed me. Those references were fun and cute. I was also disappointed that they didn't have the President do the slideshow presentation about the geopolitical risks of dating a Prince of England. I was really looking forward to that. I appreciated the emotional scene we got, but I found the whole slideshow thing funny and wanted to see it.

Like I said, there were a lot of differences between the book and the movie. There were enough that I need to go back a rewatch the movie with the idea that they are completely separate entities. I enjoyed the movie, I really did, but having this many differences and to have them be so huge is giving me conflicted feelings. Hopefully a rewatch or two will help me to sort out all my thoughts and feelings. I'll be doing a podcast episode (Queerly Popular) about the movie on Thursday, August 24th and will hopefully do a review of the movie as well.

Some Thoughts About Dear Evan Hansen

 I've seen Dear Evan Hansen twice and I have to say that I have been tremendously disappointed at the reaction to the movie. I really love the movie and thought it was absolutely wonderful. I've seen a few main criticisms, most of which strike me as a little ridiculous. I want to address those before getting to my thoughts.

The first (and most prominent) criticism is Ben Platt's age. He was 27 while this was being filmed, which is 10 years older than Evan. I don't care about this as much as other people, mainly because so many shows over the years have cast people in their mid to late twenties as teenagers in teen dramas. My personal issue is that the makeup department tried so hard to de-age him that it made it obvious that he was older than Evan. If they hadn't tried so hard, I don't think it would have been as obvious. That said, I also get the feeling that there are some people who want to find something to dislike about the movie or Ben and just glom onto this as an excuse.

Another criticism that I have seen is that someone would be belting out a song and people around them would ignore it (one example was Evan singing "Waving Through a Window"). This particular criticism was completely ridiculous because that is such a staple of musicals; particularly for a song like "Waving Through a Window" which is more of an internal monologue that Evan is having with himself. Another criticism akin to this was people complaining that characters would randomly burst into song. Both of those criticisms are what I would call bad faith criticisms of people who are looking for an excuse to dislike the movie.

I've never seen the musical on stage, but I have listened to the soundtrack, read the book, and (obviously) seen the movie. I have to say that I pretty much love all the songs equally whether or they are from the Broadway soundtrack or the movie. The only two songs where I prefer one or the other was "Sincerely Me" where I prefer the movie version and "You Will Be Found" where I prefer the Broadway version. I preferred the movie version of "Sincerely Me" because I think Colton Ryan's voice is better than Michael Faist's. As far as "You Will Be Found" goes, there is nothing in particular that I can point to that I like better, I just prefer it. As far as the new songs, I love both of them. I do wish that they had kept in "Disappear" and maybe "Good for You", but have to admit to being glad they cut "To Break in a Glove" and am agnostic about "Anybody Have a Map?".

Talking about changes, I was not overly fond of making Alana the founder of the Connor Project. It isn't so much about them expanding Alana (which I have no problem with), but I think it was better when Evan starts it himself. I also didn't get why they made a big deal about creating new characters, only to give them each 1 line in "You Will Be Found". That just struck me as a weird thing to do. I know changes will be made, but these were the changes I wasn't terribly fond of.

As for a more general criticism I've heard, I don't see Evan Hansen as an evil or bad person. Lots of people look at him and say that he is basically a con artist who is trying to take advantage of a family in grief. What people don't seem to get is that the originator of the lie wasn't Evan, it was Cynthia and Larry. They found the note Connor took from Evan in Connor's pocket and created a story that Evan and Connor were great friends. Evan tried to deny it and tell them otherwise, but they refused to listen. Then, as Evan was trying to leave, Cynthia grabbed his arm with the cast and saw Connor's name on it and became even more convinced that the story she and Larry created was true. And when they asked Evan to come over for dinner, he again tried to say otherwise, but they again wouldn't listen to him. And they fought in front of him, which is something that is guaranteed to make a person suffering from anxiety go into a mode where they will do anything to dissipate that anxiety and tension (I suffer from anxiety and do the same thing myself so often). He was trying to stop them from fighting and the only way that he could see to do that was to tell them a story they wanted to hear.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Evan is blameless or anything, but I think that people need to not just blame him. We have to acknowledge that the blame for this situation needs to be spread around. Just blaming Evan easy, but it misses a lot of the other things that happened here. I also have to admit to some issues with Alana and Jared. Jared is just mean to Evan, who looks at him as a friend, which upsets me because there is a parallel in my life where I had someone I thought was a friend just totally betray me. As for Alana, I find it hard to believe that she didn't notice the inconsistencies in the emails, so I find it annoying that she only seemed to be good with him as long as he was doing what she wanted.

Sorry this is a little scattered, but I have had a lot of thoughts. Please go see this movie if you have a chance!