There was a time, my dear children, when Prince Henry of Wales and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, were not just admired but genuinely loved by the public. This was long before Megxit, long before With Love, Meghan and long before videos of Her Royal Highness twerking while nine months pregnant with the fifth in line to the British throne as her backup dancer. Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance is the first of three films chronicling the early married life of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. This first part of the Sussex trilogy has some awful acting, awful casting, awful story, awful dialogue and awful plotlines. It is also surprisingly awful all around.
After brief visits to the childhoods in 1997 (where 12-year-old Prince Harry is struggling with the grief over his mother's death) and 1993 (where 11-year-old Meghan Markle is struggling against sexism in television commercials), we get down to the main story in 2016.
As a side note, Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance premiered in 2018 a week before their wedding.
Meghan Markle (Parisa Fitz-Henley) is a highly successful television actress who exudes feminist power. She in her first scene tells her director (Kurt Evans) that she won't turn her character into a flirt, she asks for changes in the script that suggests she is being coquettish and won't do another scene where she emerges in a towel. A friend sets her up on a blind date while she is in London for work. Meghan, leery of blind dates, has only one question: "Is he nice?". Harry (Murray Fraser) has only question: "Is she hot?". On their date, she scolds the Prince of England for being 40 minutes late. Despite this, an instant attraction develops, helped by their mutual traumas (his mother's death, her struggles against racists).
Harry's older brother Prince William (Burgess Abernethy) and sister-in-law Catherine (Laura Mitchell) look on with wariness at the budding romance. "She's American. She's divorced. Her mum is black. She makes Wallis Simpson look like Dame Judi Dench," the Duchess of Cambridge remarks to her husband's brother. For her part, Meghan is also wavering on pursuing a romantic relationship with Harry. "Glass ceilings, not glass slippers," she confides to her makeup artist.
However, Harry will not be denied. He keeps wooing his divorced, biracial actress, even going dressed as a frog to a Halloween party for the Suits cast and crew. Here, as they enthusiastically anticipate Hillary Clinton becoming the first female President of the United States, Meghan shows her moxie by standing up to Harry's bullies. He returns the favor by standing up for her to his father, then-Prince Charles (Steve Coulter) and the Cambridges for their racism against Meghan. Through it all, Meghan wavers between her feminist principles and her desire for love until she finally agrees to marry Harry.
This will involve getting permission from Harry's granny, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (Maggie Sullivun), who has a surprise of her own about the Windsor's own racial heritage. With that, Harry & Meghan can conclude their royal romance on a joyful note.
It is not surprising that television networks, in this case Lifetime, wanted to cash in on this story. As Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance was essentially rushed into production so as to coincide with the royal wedding, one can see how poor the entire production was. Terrence Coli and Scarlett Lacey's screenplay is sometimes filled with scenes and dialogue that are howlers of comedy.
Perhaps the nadir of A Royal Romance's script is when Harry and Meghan go to the Suits cast and crew Halloween party. I get that the frog costume was meant as some kind of joke for our Frog Prince. Meghan, for her part, was dressed in a pantsuit and wearing a Hillary Clinton mask. When Harry removes his frog head to have a drink at the bar, he is verbally harassed and mocked by a Suits crew member dressed as a pirate (Corey Schmitt). "Your grandmother can kiss my ass," he mockingly tells Harry. It is at this point that Meghan literally unmasks herself, causing our drunk pirate to literally cower in fear. "Meghan, I didn't realize it was you," he says, trembling.
The whole thing is hilarious. I understand that he is a Suits crewmember and that Markle may have some sway in whether or not he keeps his job. However, the idea that this man in full pirate costume is bold enough to mouth off to a member of the Royal Family but is left shaking by his actress girlfriend seems wildly off. That she was dressed as Hillary Clinton lends an extra air of the absurd. It is not so much that the scenario emasculates Harry and shows Meghan as almost a warrior queen. It is in how Menhaj Huda directs the scene that makes it all the more hilarious.
A Royal Romance is filled with such oddball dialogue. You hear Prince Harry fiercely objecting to the suggestion that Meghan shut down her blog, The Tig, or at least stay away from commenting on contentious topics like Brexit. Harry as portrayed here must have been totally bewitched by Meghan if he, with a straight face, could call The Tig "a community of inspiration". He then tears into his father, brother and sister-in-law for suggesting that Meghan may not be royal wife material. "What you say what you really mean. It's not just that she's opinionated, divorced, and an actress," pause for effect, "It's that she's African-American".
This is a strange accusation to level insofar as even in A Royal Romance, the closest anyone has come to make any vaguely racist comments was Catherine when she pointed out that Meghan's mother Doria (Melanie Nicholls-King) was black. A Royal Romance leans in on how so many in royal circles objected to Meghan due to her race. "Do you think she'll (the Queen) let her grandson marry a black girl?" a reporter heckles Doria. Harry at a wedding berates Lady Victoria (Barbara Wallace) for wearing a blackamoor brooch. "It's a symbol of our imperialist domination in Africa, something we should well apologize for, not flaunting," he berates the befuddled, fussy old woman.
I do not know the reason why A Royal Romance opted to use "Lady Victoria" rather than Princess Michael of Kent, who did wear a blackamoor brooch when attending an event where Meghan, then Harry's fiancée, was also present. Also, the incident was not at a wedding but a Christmas gathering. Granted, those are not important details to the story.
It does, however, reveal a thread in A Royal Romance that race was a major factor in the family's objection to Meghan. It makes it all the stranger given that the Queen reveals that the Windsors themselves are of mixed-race through Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. Sure, there are seven generations and two hundred years between Charlotte and Harry. Sure, the claims that Queen Charlotte was of Moorish heritage are based on an ancestor of Charlotte's that was eight generations prior to her. Details, details. Yet, I have digressed.
In terms of performances, A Royal Romance is one of horrifying levels. Perhaps the worst is Burgess Abernethy as William. Somehow, despite being only 31 years old when the film was made, he looks well past fifty. He looks and sounds absolutely nothing like the then-Duke of Cambridge. Laura Mitchell looked more like Sarah Brightman than Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. She, like Abernethy, were given leaden lines to read, and both recited them with the enthusiasm and conviction of bored individuals. Steve Coulter's Prince Charles at least had the good fortune to not be on screen long enough to leave a mark.
He does, however, have a prophetic line. "The monarchy must remain dignified," he admonishes his son when it comes to Meghan's outspoken manner. I wonder if anyone involved in A Royal Romance thought of that line when they saw Meghan Sussex twerk in a hospital delivery room as a way to induce labor.
Murray Fraser, to be fair, at least came close to sounding like Harry. He did not look anywhere near to him though. His performance was in two modes: sad or scowling. When he isn't missing Meghan or still struggling with the aftereffects of his mother's death, he is going off against racism all around him.
The best of the lot is Parisa Fitz-Henley as Meghan. She both looks and sounds like the Duchess of Sussex. She also manages to make most things believable. Some scenes do not work to be fair. "I worked too hard to be my own woman," she scolds Harry when he releases a statement defending her against "racist trolls". That, however, is the fault of the script, not of Fitz-Henley. She did the best she could with what she was given. She did do a good job, even if at times her "I AM WOMAN" manner came off as more spoof than authentic.
Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance does remind me of another television movie chronicling the courtship of Harry's father. Like with Charles & Diana: A Royal Love Story, Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance is at times unintentionally hilarious, dreadfully acted and bad entertainment.
Who would have imagined that A Royal Romance would lead to this?
2/10
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