I’m not a huge TV or movie watcher, but I do like adaptations of books that I’ve loved… if they’re done well. Today I wanted to share one of my favorite books and its movie adaptation~ Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston.

As mentioned, I love this book. I’ve read it at least 5 times and in all formats. I own the special edition hard cover with the bonus chapter. The book is perfection in my mind. Which means the movie had a lot to live up to. And it mostly did. Let’s take a look at some of the differences.

*** There are some spoilers below***

POV

The book is told completely from Alex’s (First Son of the US) point of view, (with the exception of the bonus chapter in the special edition, which takes place after the events of the book and is told from Henry’s [Prince of England] POV).

The movie starts in Alex’s POV, but switches to Henry’s later for the two biggest emotional (in my opinion) scenes. It jumps back to Alex a couple of times after the switch, but you miss some of his big moments.

Characters

There are A LOT of character changes with characters missing, changing, or being added to the movie.

Important characters that are missing from the movie: June (Alex’s sister), Rafael Luna (senator, Alex’s mentor/friend), Leo (Alex’s stepdad), Liam (Alex’s best friend from high school), Cash (secret service), Catherine (Henry’s mom).

Characters that are changed: Nora (blended w/ June’s character, no mention that she’s Bi), Bea (in book she’s older than Henry, in the movie she’s younger), the Queen becomes the King (in the book Henry’s grandmother is Queen, in the movie his grandfather is King).

Characters added: Miguel (this character simply does not exist in the book).

Timeline

As with most movies, the timeline is severely condensed, with things happening much more quickly. And in some cases out of order. Karaoke is combined with the the trip to the lake, for instance, in the movie; but in the book happened long before. And the Paris hotel scene from the movie actually took place in Los Angeles after Karaoke in the book.

The other alteration in timeline is the ages of Alex and Henry. In the book, they are both in their early twenties (Alex is 21/22, Henry is 22/23), with Alex in his senior year of undergrad at Georgetown and Henry having recently graduated and on a gap year. In the movie they are older, with Alex in law school (at Georgetown) and no mention of what Henry is doing outside of Princely things. These differences do change some of the plot lines as well.

Plotlines

There are some minor plot line changes, which is normal for a movie, but also a bigger one.

In the book, Alex is an undergrad and graduates halfway through the book. He goes to work for his mother’s campaign, working at the offices in DC. He has ideas for Texas, but is never sent to Texas to campaign. In the movie, he’s a law student and doesn’t work for the campaign until he is sent to Texas to campaign, based on a report he wrote.

Book Ellen (Alex’s mom, the President) is divorced from Alex’s dad, remarried to Leo (a billionaire tech guy who retired to be the First Gentleman), and very driven. Movie Ellen is also driven, but still married to Alex’s dad.

Post New Year’s kiss, book Alex has an existential crisis analyzing his friendship with Liam and his attraction to other men to come to terms with being bisexual. Movie Alex, accepts it pretty easily, having not only made out with the never named Liam, but also Miguel.

The villain story line in the book revolves around Ellen’s political opponent who ends up spying on Alex and outing both him and Henry, hoping to destroy Ellen’s re-election campaign. The movie villain story line is journalist Miguel who is using (and spying on) Alex for story information who ends up outing Alex and Henry out of jealousy (and pure evil). The change of this plotline completely eliminates Raphael Luna and his arc.

Emails

The emails and text messages exchanged between Alex and Henry are a HUGE part of the book and the story between them, not just because the release of their emails is what outs them, but also because the emails share so much of who they each are as a person… they fell in love through their emails.

In the book it was easy to just insert the emails and text messages as they fit in the storyline. It’s a lot harder to do that in a movie, though they did a pretty good job with showing their texts onscreen during the first montage and later overplaying an audio of their emails during Alex’s Texas visit. But there’s still that something special missing.

Finally, the book had the Queen as very bigoted and not at all open to accepting Henry and Alex until threatened by Catherine, and Catherine fighting for Henry to be allowed to be himself. The movie, however, had the King pressuring Henry to conform, but ultimately allowing him to make the decision on whether to come out publicly. I felt the King was much more accepting.

Overall

As I mentioned, I loved the book and have read it multiple times. I also loved the movie and have watched it more times than I can count.

The casting of Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex and Nicholas Galitzine as Henry was perfect.

But I do think that the movie is missing some of the key things that made Alex who he is… namely his anxiety and need to please others which really comes out in some of the missing scenes… especially the scenes in the book after the emails are leaked, culminating with Alex’s entire family being there waiting for him after a long day of meeting with advisors and plotting damage control.

We also miss out on Henry’s depression and feelings of inadequacy (we see a little of this, but not as deeply as in the book), and how much Bea and Pez (Percy in the movie) help him through it before Alex comes into his life. Percy is such a small part of the movie, but so important in Henry’s life.

I also miss the group Alex, Henry, June, Nora, Bea and Pez formed in the book that was obviously not part of the movie. They were fun and supportive and always there (along with Amy & Cash) creating a bubble of safety and acceptance for Alex & Henry.