The smallest of looks is the loudest moment in the room
Just a little one from me to save me from going insane and to sate my followers...
ZAHRA: How long has this been going on?
Alex is focused on Zahra, Henry is staring off into the middle distance until Alex answers her.
ALEX: Since New Year's.
And it's that Henry reacts to. Have a close up.
Henry's gaze flicks to Alex. In this exact moment (1 hour, 5 minutes, and 41 seconds), he looks at Alex for a few seconds.
This is the moment Alex has put a start date on this thing between them.
It's a little more certain here than it is in the book:
"How long has this been happening?" "Since, um, New Year's." (page 233)
The placement of that "um" holds meaning for me - in the book Alex is hesitating before he pins a start date on him and Henry. He's trying to figure it out and that's what he goes for. Because how long has it been going on? Since they started sharing intimate thoughts and fears? Since they increased the benefits they had added to their friendship? Since the Red Room?
Nope. Alex goes for the moment when the possibility between them changed and he completely ignores the weeks of silence that happened straight after. The period of time in which Henry was full of fear over what he'd done, what Alex might do. In the book we know he runs scared, going on a public date and being photographed.
If there was a prince, and he was gay, and he kissed someone, and maybe it mattered, that prince might have to run a little bit of interference. (page 125)
We don't have anything like that in the movie but we do have the silence. We see Henry's fear when he comes into the Red Room. Not just because of the line he crossed with Alex but because he has exposed himself and his most closely guarded secret, a glimpse of his true self.
He will know that Alex isn't going to out him - they've spent long enough talking and getting to know each other for that to not be Henry's fear. And if he was then it would have happened long before the State Dinner. Henry's fear is about losing Alex, losing the friendship, losing that connection with the boy he's wanted since the Olympics/Climate Conference.
I'd put money on Henry promising himself, once upon a time, that he would never do anything to risk losing what small pieces of Alex he could have in his life. And when they start up this thing he goes in thinking that this is all he can have, all he will get.
"I thought I could have some part of you, and just never say [I love you], and you'd never have to know, and one day you'd get tired of me and leave, because I'm--" (Page 272)
Henry didn't think he would have all of Alex, at least not anything of import, that Alex wouldn't be as far in as Henry is. And yet here he is in this hotel room, declaring they have been this thing since that kiss. Since before they properly made out in the Red Room, went down on each other in Alex's bedroom, talked about "keeping things casual" before embarking on the most insanely devoted shag fest known to mankind.
Alex has been in since New Year's and he tells Zahra just that.
In the movie he is more decisive. (Just like the instant "No" when Zahara asks if it would make a difference if she asked them to stop.)
Since New Year's. Since the moment Henry kissed me and I became unable to think about anything else except doing it again. And doing other stuff. And even though Henry ghosted him right after, even though the next thing Henry said to Alex after his apology and disappearance into the night was another apology for his behaviour, Alex has labelled that moment, that kiss, as their start.
The moment when Henry was brave.
And in the movie we get to see Henry's reaction to that. They've been discovered, things are about to blow up in a way they can't control, and Alex says that as far as he's concerned this thing between them has been going on all year.
Before the emails. Before Paris. Before the State Dinner. Alex has been Henry's since New Year's and this is the moment he finds that out.
