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| One of the most realistic gay sex scenes I've seen |
Romcoms are pretty much a dime a dozen and mostly just like a quick fix of sugar and gone in 5 minutes. The premise of RWRB is pretty silly in many ways -- a Prince of England and the First Son of the US-- like that's terribly likely. Throw in gay and it's getting even more tenuous on the reality front. But romcoms are supposed to be silly, so it's just hewing to the the genre. RWRB is more than that though.
First off there is Henry, the closeted prince. The intersection of celebrity and the closet has got to be a terrible place to live. Given the internet -- and its forever nature -- I think things are probably even worse than the bad old days. I like to use the analogy of Hollywood. In the old days you could be a gay celeb and the studios would run deflection for you. Hollywood was and is homophobic, but stars make them money and money > homophobia. So back then you could be more or less discreet and live a pretty gay life. Everybody around town knew so and so was gay, but the studios controlled the narrative and could take channel locks to the balls of the press if need be. With the internet -- "you're on your own, son".
I think a lot of gay people really relate to Henry's predicament even if they haven't been in the closet forever or were never in it in the first place. The closet is a near universal experience for gay people and it can be soul crushing. The most typical reason is religion, but it can be for almost any reason where it's dangerous to come out. In Henry's case it's the shitty expectations of family. Even for those of us who had it pretty easy, we've all witnessed people and their closets and the stories about it and it is truly heartbreaking. While Nick Nelson in Heartstopper was also closeted, it was largely a closet of his own making. Maybe that's not quite fair, but his stakes were pretty low. Henry on the other hand is truly fucked. I think that kind of closet is much less common in gay movies, especially when you throw in how hard it is to be private. It makes you ache for him.
For Alex it's another angle that you don't really see. Alex isn't closeted because he doesn't understand his feelings. We know that he's obsessed with Henry, but he doesn't understand the real reason. He tries to rationalize that Henry is awful and entitled, but the book makes it much more clear that Alex finds other guys attractive and he definitely finds Henry very attractive, but he thinks it's normal for straight guys to be able find other guys attractive. That's certainly true -- I can find women to be beautiful but that doesn't mean I want to fuck them. But Alex always has doubt as to which is which.
So I like the latent bisexual arc and it's pretty unusual. Unlike Nick Nelson from Heartstopper who is quite young and still in the phase where you're usually figuring things out, Alex is older and almost certainly dabbling in the hot chick circuit. His dalliance with Liam was in high school, so that too is easy to blow off since that's pretty common. We never know if Alex has had girlfriends before -- seemingly not -- but he's almost certainly had a fair amount of sex. Zarah more or less confirms that when she tells Alex "and no hookups" for his trip to make Henry his new bud.
Then comes the caketastrophy and the subsequent need to be buds. And then they start flirting. Henry is overtly and not so discreetly flirting with Alex, and Alex the great emotional intellect remains clueless. I'm not sure I've seen that done, like anywhere? Then comes the New Years Eve party and Alex is still clueless about his real feelings for Henry. Then Henry kisses him which is like a bolt of lightning out of the blue. Alex finally understands what this has meant. It's just that it took a clue-by-four to get him to realize it. Even his confession to Nora is weak: he's looking for an out and she reads him to filth. I really like this as it completely changed everything in his life and his understanding of himself. It doesn't really need to be a prince to have that sort of awakening, but it helps because you're probably not going to have a decade long obsession with the schlub across the street.
So that's very unusual to the point of I don't think I've ever seen that kind of bisexual representation, especially male bisexuals representation. Male bisexuals are still pretty invisible and often find themselves in a weird no-man's land where gay men don't trust them not to run off to a little missus, and women are worried that they are really gay and just using them as a beard. The reality is there are probably tons of male bisexuals who just label themselves as gay or straight because a) it's easier especially if they are more attracted to one than the other and b) if the issue isn't forced. But Alex has definitely been forced and big time. He now knows that he's extremely sexually attracted to Henry and it was sexual tension all along. That's fun for a big old homo like me who's known he was from puberty on. True lots of people don't get it till much later, but it's usually repression. Alex just never makes the connection until Henry kisses him.
The Red Room seals that they are now lovers. And boy can they not get enough of each other. The other thing that is sort of unusual is the banter both in and out of bed. Sex is not just animalistic or sensual, though it can be. Sex is fun and can be silly and playful too. That you definitely don't see often. The scene in New York where they are racing to get their clothes off laughing the entire way captures that playfulness. Matthew Lopez and his intimacy coordinator who are both gay really did a good job of capturing some of the dimensions of how gay men actual experience sex rather than the one dimensional crap that is all too common. Nick Galitzine is almost certainly straight, but my god did he get the making love scene right. Hats off.
The other part that works is that it really pulls on your heartstrings. Henry is perfectly happy with Alex as his plaything figuring Alex will get bored of him eventually. But that is incredibly sad because Henry has been in love with Alex all along. Even though the deleted fireside scene doesn't entirely make sense, you feel for Henry. He's trying to escape and let Alex love him, but he panics. That was just so horrible for both of them. Henry hurt Alex in the worst possible way. I read that in the KP bedroom scene where Alex gives Henry his ultimatum that Taylor started crying and then Nick heard him and started crying too completely unscripted -- that is very special. I figured it was scripted but to find out that the actors were so invested in that scene -- wow. Bet that doesn't happen often in Hollywood. Then there's where Alex flies to London after the scandal and they meet on the stairs. When do you see with gay flicks two lovers who are in complete despair trying to comfort one another? Holding the Man maybe? That and it's it's almost impossible for me to not speculate when Alex is really in love with Henry. My feeling is that it was when they made love that Alex knew that he was falling.
From the comedy part of romcom, Zarah is just wonderful. Her mental breakdown finding Henry in the closet is beautifully acted. And of course there is the obvious irony of closeted Henry being in a real life closet. But Henry and Alex both provide plenty too with their constant banter even when it's very obvious they are in love. My prediction is that Alex goes to his grave with Henry's contact as HRH Prince Dickhead 💩. From the very first time they really meet there is tension especially with Henry calling Alex sweetheart in a teasing way. In the book the scene with the turkeys Alex is trying to get the turkey to gobble for Henry and Henry tries to guide him "look the turkey in the eye..." and eventually "buy the turkey a vacation house in Mallorca". I think this is really a guy thing as guys are supposed to be competitive with one another. Too often that goes missing. The scene in the book with Henry after Alex fucks him and can't get any words out he thinks something to the effect of "if I had known that's what it takes to shut him up, I'd have done it months ago". Beautiful.
One last thing that may be a bit underrated was the cinematography. It was beautifully shot. The stairs scene. The overhead raft at the lake scene. The drowning scene. The shots with Bea in that beautiful garden. The first kiss scene. The deleted fireside chat scene. And my goodness the absolute beauty of the scene at the V & A. And of course the cake scene. I heard that they had a really famous cinematographer who also shot Angels in America. Now that had to have been a challenge at every level with Angels coming out of ceilings fergawdsakes so his pedigree is real. The sets were really well done too. They must have cost a pretty penny. The costuming is pretty ok too, though it's fairly easy because they are dressed in boring suits for the most part. And the infernal use of The Sheep May Safely Graze earworm that has burrowed into the center nucleus of my brain. The sound track was really good. Except for that. God damn you to hell.
It's not to say that the movie (and the book) don't have flaws. For the movie the near fatal flaw is that the time budget of two hours was way too short. That's the studio's decision though. I really don't have a problem with a lot of what was cut -- Wimbledon was just another excuse to fuck and LA didn't work as well as the movie IMO (I mean, both drunk and Henry having just eaten an In-N-Out double double before getting porked?). But the cut from the polo scene to Paris was way too abrupt and lacked any context. Same with the DNC speech and the coming out scene. It took me a while to figure out that they were two different scenes since they were in the Oval Office but seemed like they were still in New York. And the entire last several scenes went by way too fast. The Miguel Ramos plot device was not great either. The book is flawed there too (er, what happened?), but a scorned journalist queen? Feh.
So overall these are the reasons I tell myself why I'm not insane to be obsessed. The book and the movie had real innovations and things that you don't often see. I keep telling myself that I'm retired and it's not embarrassing to have something to obsess about since I'm kind of bored. It is, of course, but this is my defense. I may be convicted and sent to 6 years of hard labor at loser reform camp, but I'm at peace with that. My husband Aric even bought me a History Huh? mug and shirts. I was mortified. But popcorn. I need more popcorn. And a fucking sequel.
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