The Best Royal (and Presidential!) Rom-Coms to Watch After ‘Red, White, and Royal Blue’
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As a genre, romantic comedies are not known for having a particularly strong relationship to reality. Many of the most beloved films in the genre are heightened absurdities, relying on wild coincidences and fairy tale-esque logic to carry their love stories. But for all the silly screwballs and unbelievable farces in the romcom sphere, there’s a subcategory of the genre that tops them all in terms of absurd lack of realism: the royalty rom-com.
In a royal romantic comedy, one (or more, but generally just one) of the leads is a member of a royal family, universally a prince or a princess. The royal family member, whose country of rule is typically either completely made up or left unnamed, falls in love with a commoner or someone generally not of their station, and the main conflict comes from how they can circumnavigate the gaping class differences. Many of these movies often feel like live-action Disney Princess films, telling a whimsical story that ignores the reality of what would happen to these relationships (i.e. they would end quickly) in favor of pure wish fulfillment. Once upon a time, the subgenre produced genuine classics like “Roman Holiday;” nowadays, it’s generally reserved for schlocky straight-to-streaming hate watches like “The Christmas Prince,” but it’s hard to deny that the sheer unreality of a royal rom-com has a blissful and fizzy appeal. In America, the subgenre has a distinct cousin in the presidential daughter film, about a working class man falling in love with the daughter of the POTUS (it’s almost always the president’s daughter, almost never a son), seen in films like “Chasing Liberty” or “My Date with the President’s Daughter.”
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The new Amazon film “Red, White, and Royal Blue,” which hit the streamer August 11, combines these two subgenres together with a queer twist. Starring Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine, with Uma Thurman as a Texas-accented President of the United States, the film focuses on the President’s son Alex Claremont-Diaz (Perez) as he falls in love with one of the Princes in the British Royal Family, and the romance they must keep secret in order to protect both of their positions.
The movie, based on the hit novel by Casey McQuiston, is an utterly nonsensical fanfic of a film, where the British Royal Family is capable of reforming enough to accept a gay member in the line of succession and Texas is capable of being flipped to blue in the 2020 election. But its sugary stupidity is addictive enough that it’s easy to crave more after its two-hour runtime passes; and, although the royal romcom is otherwise a universally straight affair, there’s plenty of options to dig into beyond “Red, White, and Royal Blue.”
Here’s IndieWire’s guide to the ten best royal and presidential rom-coms to watch after “Red, White, and Royal Blue.” Entries are unranked and listed in chronological order.
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