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.
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