Film / Royal Rendezvous

Royal Rendezvous is a 2023 Romantic Comedy made by E! and directed by Christine Luby.

Catalina "Cat" Gonzalez (Isabella Gómez) is a upcoming chef in East L.A. when she suddenly gets the unexpected offer to cook a royal banquet for a royal family in Ireland.

Unbeknown to her, she gets caught in a plot by her former lover James Covington (Ruairi O Connor) to convince his grandmother Duchess Edwina (Dearbhla Molloy) to not to sell their home, something he thinks she can help with due to her "modern and exotic" cooking. Things become even more complicated when she starts developing a budding relationship with the house manager Rory McGahey (Ronan Raftery).

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Royal Rendezvous contains examples of:

• Accidental Pervert: One scene has Cat taking a bath in her room, with Rory knocking on her door because he needs her help. She wraps herself in a Modesty Towel and goes to answer the door saying she is "Coming" but he mishears "Come In" and goes inside, startling her and making her drop the towel.
• Affectionate Nickname: Cat's real name is Catalina, but she prefers it when people call her Cat, with the only people using her full name when they're being formal with her.
• Almost Kiss:
  • While Rory and Cat and working on Edwina's car, they end up getting close and both start reaching for a kiss... but then they're suddenly interrupted by Finn and Cillian talking loudly.
  • When Rory and Cat are in the kitchen talking about the banquet, the mood suddenly turns romantic and they both reach in for a kiss... until Perry comes into the kitchen and interrupts them.
• Bathtub Scene: One scene has Cat taking a luxurious bubble bath in her suite at the manor, but it gets interrupted by Rory who needs her help, with her accidentally coming inside and seeing her naked.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Cat and Rory clearly can't stand each other when they first meet and get into a lot of Snark-to-Snark Combat, but are forced to interact since he has to teach her about royal decorum for the banquet, which makes them grow close and eventually become attracted with each other, despite their clashing personalities.
• Beta Couple: While Cat's Love Triangle is the primary romance of the film, the couples of Finn & Cillian and Perry & Saoirse also get a few dedicated scenes.
• Big Damn Kiss: After a lot of Unresolved Sexual Tension and two Almost Kiss, Rory and Cat finally have a big dramatic kiss at the end of the film.
• Big Fancy House: Cat is naturally impressed by the Irish royal manor she stays in, claiming she's never even been to a room with more than 3 bedrooms, and the manor has 12.
• Blue Blood: The Covington family is a royal family in Britain, who are for the most part quite stuck up and arrogant, with James being the only one who doesn't care much for his royal status.
• British Stuffiness: Most of the film's humor comes from the contrast between Cat being an irreverent and sassy Spicy Latina having to cook for a snobbish and stuck-up British royal family who are "scandalized" by her behavior.
• The Casanova: James is said to be quite ladiesman, with Rory saying his girlfriends show up at the house all the time, and never last long. He's even shown to have easily seduced Cat back in Los Angeles.
• Chekhov's Gun: After a disastrous first impression, Cat sends an e-mail to a friend talking about how the Covingtons are snobs and that her making a book with them (meaning her cookbook) is unlikely. In the third act, Edwina goes through her computer and finds the e-mail and assumes the "book" being talked about is a gossip book about the royal family and that Cat is a manipulative seductress who's tricking them all.
• Chekhov's Skill: Cat casually mentions she's a great mechanic during dinner with the Covingtons, and this comes up later when Rory needs her help sabotaging the Duchess' car so she can't drive and hurt herself.
• Childhood Friends: Rory and Saoirse were close friends who grew up together in the children's home, but he grew distant from her after he started working at the Covington Manor and becoming more haughty and snobbish. They end up rekindling their friendship with Cat's help, who tells Rory a lifelong friendship like that is too precious to just let go.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: The previous Covington family cook flirted with Edwina's husband during their last visit, and Edwina still holds a grudge about it, which is why James hired Cat to replace her for Edwina's next visit.
• Cock Fight: Downplayed. James and Rory become increasingly more hostile towards each other as they develop feelings for Cat, but it never evolves into an actual physical fight.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: As James becomes jealous of Cat and Rory becoming close, he starts to become aggressive and rude towards Rory, to the point of threatening to fire him.
• Deadpan Snarker: Cat enjoys being snarky and witty whenever she's faced with unconventional, royal decorum. James appreciates it, but the other nobles do not.
• Disappeared Dad: Cat mentions her dad ditched her and her family when she was young.
• Dramatic Irony: When Cat first arrives at Covington Manor, she's treated as a scandalous interloper by almost everyone there, with James being the only supportive of her. By the end, she has won over everyone but James has become resentful of her for picking Rory over him.
• Drives Like Crazy: Edwina is introduced crashing her car at the manor's garden. Apparently, she's getting too old to drive by herself but doesn't want to admit it. It gets to the point that Rory resorts to sabotaging her car so she won't go out by herself.
• Every Proper Lady Should Curtsy: When Cat meets Duchess Edwina, Rory all but forces Cat to do a curtsy since it's the proper way for a "lady" to greet nobility, but working-class Cat has no idea how to do it properly, causing her to almost trip into the ground in the attempt.
• Fancy Dinner: The plot involves Cat, a working-class chef who runs a food truck, being hired to be the cook for a royal British family for a week. This naturally causes conflict since she's not used to the formality and etiquette necessary for a royal banquet.
• Fascinating Eyebrow: Duchess Edwina raises a single eyebrow when Cat inappropriately laughs at one of her remarks.
• Female Gaze: When the shirtless James wanders into the kitchen, the camera zooms in on his bare chest.
• Gentleman Snarker: In contrast to Cat's sarcastic humor, Rory is a Servile Snarker who mocks her (and James) in more subtle ways while still sounding like a "proper" gentleman. She finds it particularly irritating.
• Gibberish of Love: After Rory accidentally sees Cat naked, he gets so Distracted by the Sexy that he loses his usual composure, and his speech is reduced to incoherent stuttering for a few moments.
• Grande Dame: Edwina is a dignified royal Duchess with a Proper Lady etiquette and is a haughty matriarch who everyone at the manor is terrified of defying. Cat being able to stand up to her actually causes her to respect her.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Cat sprinkles in a few Spanish words in her speech sometimes, to emphasize her Colombian heritage, such as referring to Edwina as an "abuela".
• Hands-On Approach: James takes advantage of the idea of practicing archery with Cat as an excuse to touch and flirt with her as he teaches her how to shoot.
• Haughty Help: Rory is the house manager of the Covington manor, and he's quite haughty and snobbish since he used to love the nobility back when he was an orphan. James even described him as a "dryshite", which seems to be a view popular among the people who knew him before, such as his Childhood Friend Saoirse who says he's now a snob who "lives in a castle" and has forgotten all about the working-class friends he had.
• Hidden Depths: At first Edwina and Petty come off as total Upper-Class Twit, but later they show some character depth, with Edwina coming to respect Cat for her not being afraid of standing up to her and Petty admitting he feels lonely and out of place when amongst normal people, and confesses he wished he was better at interacting with the townsfolk.
• Hired for Their Looks: Cat is offended when she finds out James was the one who hired her to cook for his family, as she believes he's biased and only hired her because he's attracted to her, but he convinces her that he's sincere in that he does loves her cooking and she proves herself to be competent. But it does become clear that James did hope to rekindle his relationship with her while she worked at his house.
• Hired Help as Family: The Covingtons treat Rory, the house manager, almost as one of their own as they appreciate his competency and love for traditional British etiquette. James bitterly describes that Rory is the son his father wished he was.
• I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!: When Saoirse says she will give Perry a "logical argument" to convince him not to sell the manor, it involves her taking off her jacket, and adjusting her dress to make her cleavage more apparent, making it obvious what her real plan is.
• Innocent Innuendo: When Cat explains how she met James to his family, she claims he was her "customer" and he "really liked her taco", which they seem to take as a euphemism for her being a sex worker.
• Innocently Insensitive: During one of Rory's Servile Snarker moments, she jokes that he "must have never had a childhood" and he gets oddly serious. She later learns he was an orphan who grew up in a children's home and becomes mortified at her previous remark.
• Instant Seduction: In the flashbacks showing James and Cat's relationship, we see their first meeting where he flirts with her at her food truck, with her seemingly unimpressed by his charm. The second flashback starts with them falling in bed together, showing his charm did win her over in the end.
• Love at First Sight: Lord Perry seems to instantly fall for Saoirse the moment he meets her, and even holds back his usual Upper-Class Twit attitude for her sake.
• Love Triangle: Cat and James had a hook-up before the events of the film, and still have lingering attraction for each other, but during her stay at the manor she ends up connecting with Rory instead, leading to a love triangle.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Cat and Rory have this dynamic, with him being "feminine" due to his care for etiquette, formality, and composure while she comes off as masculine for being more practical-minded and irreverent. This is more highlighted when they work together in the Duchess' car, with Rory being completely clueless about mechanics (a traditionally male activity) while she's a Wrench Wench.
• Mondegreen Gag: When Rory interrupts Cat's bath to ask for her help, she covers up with a Modesty Towel and goes to answer the door while yelling "Coming". But he mishears "Come in" so he goes inside, which ends up surprising her and causing an awkward Accidental Pervert moment as her towel suffers a Wardrobe Malfunction due to the sudden movement.
• Modest Royalty: James is very irreverent about his status as royalty, and likes to travel to America where he can party around and be himself. His father and grandparents greatly disapprove of this behavior. At the end of the film, he decides to move away from the manor and stop using his family money to get by and try to make a life for himself.
• Modesty Towel: Cat wraps herself in a towel when her bubble bath is interrupted, but Rory ends up coming inside the room due to mishearing her and startling her, which causes the flimsy towel to come undone.
• Mr. Fanservice: James is a handsome guy who's often played as eye candy with a few Shirtless Scenes with the camera doing close-ups on his bare chest.
• Ms. Fanservice: Cat is played for sex appeal a number of times, such as her wearing a backless dress with a Navel-Deep Neckline for the ball or her gratuitous Bathtub Scene that involves her towel suffering a Wardrobe Malfunction.
• Naked People Are Funny: One scene has Rory accidentally walking into a towel-clad Cat who is startled and ends up dropping it, with her ensuing Naked Freak-Out and his apologetic inelegant bubblering being played for awkward humor.
• New Old Flame: James and Cat had a one-night hook-up back in Los Angeles a few months before the start of the story, and her now having to work for his family again makes feelings between them spark up again.
• Nice Guy: Cillian, the Covington chauffer, is nothing but nice and courteous to Cat and doesn't mind her working-class origins in the slightest, which contrasts with almost everyone else at the manor who treats her like an interloper and she has to work to win over.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Lord Perry is usually a stuck-up snob who barely knows how to interact with people outside his social circle and greatly values tradition and etiquette, but when he first meets Saoirse he starts to act uncharacteristically humble and even waves off her attempts at acting formal, saying it's "unnecessary", all while a bemused Cat watches their interaction with awe. This is done to illustrate how he has instantly fallen for her.
• Racist Grandma: Duchess Edwina's first reaction to seeing the Latin-American Cat is calling her an "exotic creature", with Cat calling that being "racist adjacent".
• Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: Cat is stuck in a Love Triangle between the rich, noble James and the commoner, house manager Rory. But this is played up a bit, as James is unceremonial and casual while Rory is uptight and formal.
• The Rival: Finn, the secondary cook who works at the Covington manor, sees Cat as a rival interloper trying to steal his job, which she finds incredulous as she's only being hired to work there for a week.
• Scenery Porn: The film takes full advantage of being set in Ireland, with several panning shots of the gorgeous scenery sprinkled throughout the story.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: When Cat and James sleep together in the flashback, we see them making out in bed and taking off their clothes before the scene cuts away to the present.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Rory assumes Cat is just one of James' (many) girlfriends when she first shows up at the manor, which she's quick to correct she's the chef he hired. Unfortunately for her, James was one of her past hook-ups, but she had no idea when she accepted the job.
• Shirtless Scene: James comes to the kitchen shirtless and dripping with sweat after a tennis match, with both Cat and Finn getting distracted by the sight.
• Shower of Awkward: Rory ends up walking in on a naked Cat in the bathroom due to accidentally mishearing her say "come in" when she actually said "coming". The scene is used to heighten the Unresolved Sexual Tension between the two.
• Spicy Latina: Cat is an attractive Latina-American girl of Colombian descent, and has a spunky, sassy and fun-loving attitude that clashes with all the royal stuffiness she has to deal with for the royal banquet.
• Spoiler Cover: At first it looks like James is Cat's primary Love Interest in the film with Rory being a side character, but the film's poster openly features Cat and Rory kissing with James nowhere in sight, making it clear they're the real Official Couple.
• Supreme Chef: Cat is still a humble chef who still works in a food truck, but is so talented in her Colombian cuisine that she has become internationally famous. Even Edwina and Perry end up enjoying her dishes, despite being total snobs.
• Third-Act Misunderstanding: Near the end of the film, just as things are looking up for Cat, a picture of James planting a Forceful Kiss on her is published in tabloids, ruining her romance with Rory. Edwina comes to suspect her and reads the e-mail on her computer about wanting to make a "book" out of the royal banquet, Cat meant a cookbook, but Edwina assumes Cat is actually some manipulative seductress toying with James to make a gossip book about the royal family, and fires Cat. Naturally, nobody listens when she tries to explain the truth and she needs to make a grand impractical gesture behind their backs with the help of the townsfolk to get them to hear her out and clear things up.
• Toplessness from the Back: When Cat loses her towel and ends up naked in front of Rory, the camera angle stays on her bare back until she picks up the towel from the floor.
• Underdressed for the Occasion: Rory explicitly criticizes Cat being unfit to cook for a royal banquet due to her showing up at the manor in a ponytail and a simple denim jacket.
• Upper-Class Twit: Both Duchess Edwina and Lord Petty are stuck-up Blue Blood snobs who love traditional British Stuffiness and look down on Cat for being an "American commoner" who disregards etiquette. Cat even describes them as being unable to "interact with normals".
• Uptight Loves Wild: Rory, the stuck-up, uptight house manager of a royal family ends up falling in love with Cat and her unconventional, fun-loving, and immature demeanor.
• Uptown Girl:
  • Played With. Cat is an upcoming but still humble chef in L.A. who gets involved with a rich and noble Lord James Covington, but he's actually Modest Royalty. But her real Love Interest turns out to be Rory, who is working class but has the stuck-up attitude of a British noble.
  • Played straight with Lord Petty falling for Saoirse, the working class "commoner" girl who lives in the nearby town.
• We Used to Be Friends: When Cat visits the local Irish market with Rory, she meets his childhood friend Saoirse, who grew up together with Rory at the children's home, but they ended up having a falling out since Rory began to look down on "common folk" once he started working at the manor.
• When She Smiles: Rory usually likes to maintain a haughty and unexpressive face, but some of Cat's antics cause him to smile, and she points out how he looks much better whenever he does.
• Wrench Wench: Cat is actually a fairly talented mechanic when it comes to cars, due to her dad being a used car salesman, which seems to greatly surprise the Covingtons, who see it as "unladylike".
• Wrong Guy First: Cat and James both meet and slept together before the start of the film. While he hired her in the hopes of renewing their relationship, she ends up falling and getting together with Rory instead.

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