Step aside, Meghan and Harry—a new American-meets-Brit love story is set to make headlines this summer. That’s the premise of the first trailer for Red, White & Royal Blue, in which British prince Henry (Cinderella’s Nicholas Galitzine) and American first son Alex Claremont-Diaz (The Kissing Booth’s Taylor Zakhar Perez) find love within a reluctant political alliance.
Based on Casey McQuiston’s bestselling beach read, this enemies-to-lovers plot begins with an ill-fated royal wedding at which Alex and Henry have an argument that ends with them both covered in cake. In order to preserve positive international relations, the two rivals are forced into a public relations-facilitated truce. “But as Alex and Henry’s icy relationship unexpectedly begins to thaw into a tentative friendship,” the official synopsis teases, “the friction that existed between them sparks something deeper than they ever expected.”
New footage from the film, which is directed by Tony Award-winning playwright Matthew López (The Inheritance) from a script he wrote with Ted Malawer, has everything one could want from a beach read’s big-screen equivalent. There’s Uma Thurman using a Southern accent in the Oval Office, a clandestine New Year’s Eve kiss, flirty quips about NDAs, and this actual line from Sarah Shahi’s chief of staff character: “We are in a hotel crawling with reporters. If anyone sees you leave this hotel, I will Brexit your head from your body.”
One-liners like that ensure that Red, White & Royal Blue remains rooted in the classic romantic comedy genre, just as the author intended. “I felt like what I was missing was something packaged like all of the rom-coms that I loved growing up,” McQuinton told Vanity Fair in 2019 of the inspiration for her debut novel. “And that was this shiny, colorful, 10 Things I Hate About You–type of experience, where it was frothy and trope-y, and it felt like a million things you’d read before but it felt new at the same time.”
The film hits Prime Video on August 11.
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