#it also feels slightly disingenuous that casey hyped up bea/nora so much after the teaser scene of them talking was revealed

[eliotquillon]

just finished the rwrb movie and although i really enjoyed it (and was kicking my feet giggling the whole time) i do have a couple of major criticisms, some of which i think aren’t really the movie’s fault because they had to fit a whole book into 2 hours, but some of which left me kind of disappointed:

-i feel slightly icky that bea and nora got their screentime SIGNIFICANTLY reduced even after june got cut entirely (which i was upset about, but did understand). i loved zahra and adored her on screen but i do think it’s very odd that she is pretty much the only major female character in this movie since bea was nonexistent and nora got permanently spirited away to pez’s bed or something sometime during the second act

-it felt like a lot of the internal conflict in alex and henry’s relationship was very unbalanced and henry heavy - alex’s neurodivergence was erased, his bi epiphany was barely even an epiphany, and him not being explicitly kicked off the campaign after ellen finds out about him and henry essentially killed his whole subplot about realising he doesn’t need to have everything achieved at thirty and deciding he wants to apply to law school instead. which wouldn’t have been terrible but on the flipside it felt weird that we didn’t see very much of henry’s family considering how much they affect and shape his fear of being outed and his feeling of being in a glass cage - e.g bea’s treatment by the media during her active addiction (which was entirely erased), the extent of the tension between him and philip. felt like henry’s pov scenes were a super wasted opportunity for that and we were mostly just being Told about all of these things

-i am not actually that mad about oscar and ellen still being together lol but i felt like in the scene with oscar smoking the cigar on the balcony they were kinda building up to there being significant strain in his and ellen’s relationship that just wasn’t explored. especially since it’s clear oscar would never be able to be president because he’s not a natural born citizen + the sacrifice of his career for ellen’s is so much bigger now that he’s first gentleman in this version

-pacing in general was a bit off but the worst offender was the fact that there was a complete time skip between the alex henry confrontation/reconciliation and the outing. so much of the tension and desperation from that outing scene comes from the fact that the risk of it happening was slowly increasing throughout the book and it felt almost inevitable (the elevator cctv being leaked, henry having to fake date june) and honestly making it so abrupt weirdly reduced a lot of its impact for me

-similarly i actually completely understand why the richards plot / rafael luna plot was cut (i suspect republican election interference hits a bit too close to home after 2020) but my god was miguel a lame fucking villain and him being queer and hispanic erased a lot of the original commentary about racism and homophobia that the richards plot lent itself to. like in general this movie was a lot lighter than the book which is fine! but for a movie where the main subplot is a presidential election So Much of the political themes were heavily neutered or cut to the point that it seemed like the pressure on henry and alex’s relationship was disproportionately coming from henry’s side when in the book it was more balanced

again on the whole i really really loved this movie and i knew going in that certain changed were going to be made. and i hope more movies get made like it! these r just my Thots and i may change my mind when i rewatch it with my friend tomorrow

#rwrb #red white and royal blue #putting this in the tags but the movie actually kind of emphasised a lot of the problems i have with the book #re: gender at least #i remember first reading the book in 2019 and being upset that june giving up so many of her dreams #to support her family wasnt explored more #like with her ex boyfriend who it was implied she still kind of had feelings for but had moced to california #it also feels slightly disingenuous that casey hyped up bea/nora so much after the teaser scene of them talking was revealed #except that was the only scene they ever interacted in. ever #and i know it’s not that deep I KNOWWWW #but i’ve been thinking a lot about fandom treatment of women lately #and weirdly this movie kind of exemplifies a lot of the issues i have witb fandom as a whole and not just rwrb #anyway.