Harry & Meghan: Becoming Royal. The Television Movie

HARRY & MEGHAN: BECOMING ROYAL

The second part of the Sussex Trilogy came a year after Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance. They, like the world, were still in the honeymoon phase of their love affair with regards to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Harry & Meghan: Becoming Royal manages to outdo its predecessor in sheer awfulness on every conceivable level. 

It is six months before the wedding of the millennium between His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales (Charlie Field) and sparkling American actress Meghan Markle (Tiffany Smith). They are passionately in love. They are also passionately besieged by all sorts of people. There are the obnoxious hosts of Good Day UK, Caspian Sharp (Noah Huntley) and Briget Dover (Louise Bond). They make snide remarks, almost always about Meghan, with Caspian being the worst of the two. There is also the less than warm welcome by Harry's brother Prince William (Jordan Whalen) and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (Laura Mitchell). 

Both of them would probably struggle with such things as having a black preacher and a gospel choir at the wedding. They most definitely struggle to understand why the Me-Too Movement is so important. Someone who most definitely struggles with the future Mrs. Mountbatten-Windsor is Sir Leonard Briggs (James Dreyfus). He is openly disdainful of this American showgirl and her independent ways. He might be part of the conspiracy against her for speaking out for women. Meghan is upset over why she is discouraged from wearing a white gown or having the emerald tiara she had her heart set on.

Even more struggles come Harry and Meghan's way. Her father, Thomas Markle has worked with the paparazzi to get favorable photos, leaving Meghan devastated. Fortunately, she does have some allies. There is her mother, Doria Ragland (Melanie Nicholls-King). She will watch after her Flower. Also on her side is His Royal Highness Charles, Prince of Wales (Charles Shaughnessy). They even have Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (Maggie Sullivun) on their side. Eventually, even Sir Leonard comes around, shifting from enemy to loyal ally. 

The now-Duke and Duchess of Sussex finally marry, but there is still half an hour to go. Meghan pushes for a cookbook to help the victims of the Grenfell Fire. The palace and Sir Leonard suggest a book cover featuring the dishes. Meghan, ever wise, ever strong, ever empathetic, ever progressive, insists on recalling the published copies to change the cover to feature the black and brown women wearing headscarves and hijabs. While this upsets the Palace and William in particular, who sees this as pushing a pro-immigrant agenda, Sir Leonard calmly reminds the Sussexes that St. George, symbol of Great Britian, was not actually British but Turkish. He, like Meghan, fought for religious tolerance. 

A year now gone, and Meghan has changed the world. It is to where Good Day UK cohost Bridget finally stands up to the smug Caspian, calling him out as a miserable, racist, chauvinist pig for criticizing and mocking Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. With that, Good Day UK not only has learnt its lesson, but like the Windsors, has embraced diversity, equity and inclusion by having a black cohost, Sebastian Zink (Robel Zere).  

Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance was by no means good. However, frankly I'm astonished that the same writing and directing team (Scarlett Lacey and Menhaj Huda respectively) could have come up with something even worse the second time around. Perhaps it is due to how Lacey worked on the screenplay alone (IMDB crediting A Royal Romance to her and Terrence Coli). Becoming Royal is filled with such awful bits of dialogue and scenes that one at times comes close to gasping at the ineptitude on display.

After Meghan is seen as difficult for insisting on using her voice to speak out on important causes, the tyrannical Sir Leonard is sent over to her. Becoming Royal already established that Sir Leonard is a stickler for protocol and is not fond of Meghan's manner. He comes in and, in a huff, sneers to the stunned Meghan, "THAT old Queen sent THIS old queen to keep you in line". This does feed into the narrative that Harry and Meghan insist on, that no one at the Palace was helping Markle navigate the labyrinthine world of Court life. 

It was probably due to racism or opposition to a strong woman. If Becoming Royal is to be believed, there was nothing about Meghan to criticize. 

That is on the oddball part. There is another aspect in Becoming Royal that is more stunning in its silliness. It is on how laudatory to downright worshipful the film is about Meghan. The television film is filled with downright laughable scenes. Meghan and Harry continue to be the brunt of criticisms and comments filled with racial animosity (because that apparently is the only motive people have against them). Hotheaded Harry wants to strike back hard against those who would speak against Meghan.

"Some people react to violence with violence," she says, "but our retaliation is putting good into the world". This Gandhi-like reaction to being unfairly bashed by smug television presenters like Caspian Sharp brings this reply from Harry. "Every time I think I understand how strong you are, you astound me once again". One does not know whether to cringe or break out laughing at such a line. Charlie Field's near-comatose delivery does not help. 

Perhaps it was his way of stopping himself from breaking down laughing at having to say such pompous things. That, somehow, was not the nadir of Becoming Royal's pomposity towards the importance of Rachel Meghan Markle. That dubious distinction goes to Melanie Nicholls-King as Doria Ragland, who is one of the people reprising her role from A Royal Romance. 

As they ride out towards the church in a luxurious automobile (I cannot recall if Meghan was prevented from riding in a carriage as she had hoped to), Doria offers her insight into how groundbreaking her daughter is. Doria and Meghan converse as they look upon the crowds of well-wishers. "They're cheering for the centuries of history being overturned today. This beautiful wedding is breaking so many stereotypes and pushing so many boundaries. A whole lot of people are going to be lifted up." To put a coda on this bit of gibberish, Becoming Royal focuses on a pretty little black girl among the crowd looking on, presumably one of those people that are going to be lifted up.

It is to where I wondered if Lacey was literally taking dictation straight from Meghan Sussex about the importance of Meghan Sussex to human history. One can watch only in stunned, stoney silence at Doria's absolutely insane pep talk. I got that similar feeling when we saw morning show Bridget finally tell off her smug cohost. To be fair, we did see something of an evolution to Bridget in that her originally snide and snippy comments about Meghan started to be less snide and snippy.

However, her live on-set meltdown was there to drive home the message Becoming Royal seems to push: all criticism about Meghan Markle is based around her race and her gender. It has nothing to do with her as a person. It has everything to do with two parts of her background that she has no control over. She flat-out calls him a racist, chauvinist pig. Sebastian was obnoxious, cartoonishly so, but I do not recall him making any overtly racists comments about Meghan. Again, Becoming Royal put a coda to the suggestion that Meghan Markle made the world better when we see Bridget with a new cohost, who just happens to be black.

Becoming Royal brought back some of the cast from A Royal Romance to reprise their roles. As mentioned, Nicholls-King came back as Doria, forever watchful over her Flower. She was actually good in the role. I also should give her extra points for not openly breaking out into laughter at her "Centuries Being Overturned Thanks to You, Meghan" monologue. Any actress who could deliver such nonsense and try to make it sound reasonable deserves credit.

Also returning are Laura Mitchell as then-Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. She still looks more like Sarah Brightman than the former Catherine Middleton. She also still continues to play Catherine as a bit dim and disinterested in things, with a breathy voice to speak with. The big surprise of our returning cast is Sullivun as Queen Elizabeth II. There was only a year's gap between the first of eventually three films on the Sussexes. However, I was shocked at how fat Queen Elizabeth II looked. Sullivun made Lilibet look so heavyset that one wondered if she thought that she was playing Queen Victoria instead. Timothy Temple as Prince Philip was so insignificant that I did flat-out ask while watching, "Who is that geezer next to her?". Temple looks nothing at all like Philip. He contributed nothing to the story. I wonder if he just wandered onto the set and decided that he would do.

The newcomers were stunningly worse than the original cast. Becoming Royal's biggest name actor is Charles Shaughnessy as Prince Charles. A running gag in The Nanny (where most people would know Shaughnessy from) was how his character of Mr. Sheffield had turned down the chance to produce Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber's musical Cats. Even a dolt like Mr. Sheffield would have turned down Becoming Royal. Shaughnessy embarrasses himself as Charles. You do not even see him, but hear him utter, "You're so good at charades, Mummy", when the family gathers for Christmas hijinks. He says it like a dimwitted five-year-old. He makes Charles look clueless and a bumbler, unaware of how to behave around people.

Jordan Whalen takes over the role of Prince William originally played by Burgess Abernathy. Whalen is a slight, slight improvement over Abernathy in terms of looking and sounding like Prince William, but not by much. Whalen could pass for Prince William if one squinted from about a thousand miles away. He had little to do except scowl and be crabby towards just about everyone.

Our two leads though were just beyond terrible. When casting Charlie Field, I got the awful sense that the casting director was told, "Find a redheaded man who can speak and understand English". His Harry was flat when he was not angry about the attacks on Meghan. I might owe Murray Fraser, the first Harry from A Royal Romance, an apology for saying that he was bad. At least he was able to display two emotions. Field, I think, topped out at one. 

Tiffany Smith, taking over for Parisa Fitz-Henley, was downright disastrous as Meghan Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. She looked nothing like the Duchess of Sussex. That was already bad enough. It was her acting that was dreadful. There was what was meant to be a heartbreaking moment when she calls her father about him working with photographers and selling the pictures. As acted by Smith, it would elicit more laughter than tears at how awful Smith's acting was. Becoming Royal was filled with bad acting all around. Tiffany Smith just happened to be the worst of the lot.

When deciding to approach the Queen about having a black preacher and gospel choir at her wedding, she remarks that she wants "things that are true to my heritage". This is a curious thing for someone to say who went to Catholic school and who, to the best of my knowledge, has no particularly strong connection to any denomination. Harry & Meghan: Becoming Royal is good only if one wants to deliberately listen to bad dialogue performed with bad acting.

Who knew that Becoming Royal involved twerking at nine months pregnant to induce labor? Nothing says "breaking down so many stereotypes and pushing so many boundaries" like gyrating in a hospital room for all the world to see. 

1/10