Bros review: 'A delightful, fresh new romcom'

Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane star in a charming gay romance that leans into meta territory while being "entertaining and effective", writes Caryn James.

It is a trope of contemporary romcoms that they call attention to the fact that they're romcoms, from Bridget Jones falling for the perfectly named Mr Darcy to the recent gay romance Fire Island, with its voiceover nod to Pride and Prejudice. The trick is to self-consciously toy with the genre while heading toward that predictable but satisfying happy ending. The very funny Bros accomplishes that by leaning fully into meta territory, and centering on the acerbic wit of its star and co-writer, Billy Eichner.

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Eichner's character, Bobby, is a middle-aged podcaster who has no expectations of romance or illusions about love. He falls for an equally detached lawyer, Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), setting the stage for the obstacle course ahead. Eichner wrote the screenplay with the film's director, Nicholas Stoller, but the comedy works because of Eichner's distinct comic voice. Bobby is an echo of Eichner's on-screen persona, going back to the brash, faux-angry Billy on the Street TV show days when he screamed and accosted strangers with ludicrous pop culture questions.

Even before he locks eyes with Aaron in a crowded club, we get to know Bobby, who is determined to educate the world about gay history. As he tells his podcast listeners, he doesn't understand why his children's book touting Martina Navratilova as a gay icon flopped. In the most meta of episodes, he takes a meeting with a film studio executive looking for a "nice" romcom screenplay everyone can like, about gay characters. Bobby tells him, "Not all gay people are nice," and "I'm not the person to write a romcom anyway." Eichner is the right person, though. His screenplay mirrors Bobby's belief that "Love is love" is an empty phrase, and that gay relationships are different from straight ones. In Bros, that approach leads to sly observations about the absurdity of dating.

Stoller, whose comic hits include The Neighbours and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, brings that breezy, easy-to-like style to Bros. While Bobby is a mass of defensiveness and insecurities, Aaron is hunky and bored with his job as an estate lawyer. On the night he and Bobby meet, Aaron is planning a sexual encounter with another man and his husband. When Bobby later complains, "Gay relationships today are like a clown car," filled with too many people, it is a typical Eichner line, pointing out an issue Austen's Elizabeth and Darcy never had to face.

Bobby wonders if Aaron likes him, while Aaron keeps disappearing. Nonetheless, they stroll around New York as if they were in When Harry Met Sally, a film Bobby sarcastically evokes in a later conversation. In a gleeful sex scene (discreetly shot) the two push and shove and slap each other silly while Nat King Cole's When I Fall in Love plays on the soundtrack. The use of that song perfectly captures the film's tone, ironically undercutting the episode playing out, yet pointing toward the genuine romantic emotions the men are beginning to feel.

The film's many small comic touches, almost asides, are just as important as the romance. There are quick cameo appearances, including one in which Kristin Chenoweth appears at a fundraiser wearing a revolving model of the Stonewall Inn on her head. Bobby's role as head of a new museum of LGBTQ+ history is at times flat-footed in the way it works in educational titbits, but also a source of more goofy jokes. Should the museum have an animatronic gallery of gay heroes, like Disney World's Hall of Presidents? Should there be a hologram of Eleanor Roosevelt played by Amy Schumer?

Bros races along almost until the end when it embraces romcom elements, including a montage, that land as more clichéd than subversive. But that doesn't make the rest of this charming film any less entertaining and effective.

The film's major publicity point, which Eichner has been spouting for weeks, is that it is the first studio, theatrically released romcom about a gay relationship, with the major characters played by LQBTQ+ actors. True enough, but that's treading a very fine, inside-industry line. It's not as if Fire Island doesn't exist. Both films are delightful examples of what a fresh new romcom can be.

★★★★☆

Bros is released in the US on 30 September.

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