Today, our critic Richard Lawson turns his astute intellect to Amazon’s film adaptation of the best-selling novel Red, White & Royal Blue. Is it Merchant and Ivory-ish? It is not. “It’s high-gloss soap, done up in the garish hues and stagey patter of toss-off Hallmark holiday junk,” Lawson writes. “I can’t wait to watch it a hundred more times. Which is perhaps an embarrassing thing to admit as an adult in early-middle-age, but fuck it.” Lawson remembers reading the novel years ago, and feeling that, despite its hokeyness, it offered “something rare even in this half-enlightened age: The chance for queer people, specifically men attracted to men, to be pandered to in the hokey fashion familiar to millions of straight consumers of those Hallmark movies, of those gooey Netflix romance shows, of myriad novels where cutesy people meet cutely and then tumble into the cutest kind of love.” RW&RB, we salute you!
Elsewhere in our HWD coverage today, Natalie Jarveyunpacks Disney+’s arguably bewildering new subscription bundles—and price increases. David Canfield talks to Paris Barclay, who’s been directing beloved episodes from shows for years. Contributing editor Franklin Leonard talks to the great Don Cheadle about his career on our A List video series. And our Still Watching podcast team dives back intoAnd Just Like That…, asking if Aidan’s heart is really safe in Carrie’s hands.
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