Movie Reaction: Bros

Formula: Fire Island * Forgetting Sarah Marshall

A lot of effort went into the ad campaign for Bros to point out the ways that it is groundbreaking. I think it settled on “the first gay RomCom made by a major studio” or “the first gay RomCom that received a wide theatrical release”. I’m not a fan of that. Not because I think that the more qualifiers you add, the less remarkable the accomplishment is. It’s because that builds the movie up as some kind of standard-bearer, when really Bros is to look at as another film in the bunch. If you strip it of any firsts, Bros is an Apatow-produced film from a fist time leading man and a capable but not starry supporting cast. It was released in a time when comedies in general and RomComs more specifically struggle to get theatrical releases and struggle even more to really break out. Given all those factors, it’s hard to look at Bros as anything but a reasonable success.

 

The story itself is standard RomCom fare. Bobby (Billy Eichner) is a 40-something man who has never been in a relationship before. He meets Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) who prefers to be similarly unattached. They fall into a relationship and have to work through their assorted hang-ups in order to be together. And it hits all those RomCom beats successfully enough that I wondered yet again, why this genre has been dying the last decade or two.

 

Of course, being about a gay couple, there are a lot of details here that add specificity. That’s what I really appreciated about the movie. The nature of Bobby and Aaron’s relationship is just different than the boy/girl RomCom. The dating scene is different. The emotional hurdles are different. The personal journeys are different. It’s a little tricky recommending this movie because in many ways “It’s just like any other RomCom”, however I also like it for how it’s different from the normal RomCom.

 

I’m on the fence about Billy Eichner as the lead of this. I’ve come to like him a lot in general after I was introduced to him in Parks & Rec as “the loud guy”. He’s good in this in a similar way to how Pete Davidson is good in The King of Staten Island. It’s a film co-written by Eichner with a character that plays to all of Eichner’s strengths. He’s pretty good in this, but it’s not a revelation that makes me wonder what else he has in him. But he definitely works in this movie. Luke Macfarlane is definitely in the film for the Rom more than the Com. I can already tell he’s going to end up in my “Sam Worthington Face Blindness” category of actor. Again, he’s good in Bros, but I have no real need to see him in anything else.

 

Honestly, Bros felt a lot like any other Nicholas Stoller movie. That’s not a negative in any way. I love Neighbors. I like Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I at least enjoyed everything of his I’ve seen. Bros has a lot of the same DNA. It meanders a bit in the middle. The sincere moments sometimes feel like they are battling with the funny moments. Like, Eichner gives a really touching speech at one point outlining his origin story that is also a momentum killer. The movie has an improvisational feel which leads to some really funny jokes but a sometimes clunky story. It’s the tradeoff I expected going in, and I was happy that the film embraced it.

 

Bros. Not perfect, but likely the best RomCom I’ll see in theaters this year. I do wish it had more competition for that title though.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend