Bros

Marketed as the first gay romantic comedy to get a theatrical release (which Fire Island would dispute), Bros is meant to be groundbreaking. Is it? In my opinion no.

It's your average rom com with a storyline thats been done dozens of times. It felt very similar to Bridesmaids and Trainwreck, which makes sense given its producer and director.

Whilst it's modern and satirical, it's at times too obvious in its attempts to be clever. At first I enjoyed them poking fun at 'hallmark' movies but they took it too far and it soon lost its appeal.

My biggest gripe with the film is it's lead Billy Eichner. He is a polarizing person, and in this film he basically plays himself. I could see he was trying to show off his acting chops with lots of dialogue but I didn't really buy him as a leading man. Luke Macfarlane's character was more likable, but overall basic, underdeveloped and one note.

Some comical moments but it's not the laugh out loud comedy that I was hoping it would be.

As a man who really struggles with romcoms at the best of times, I was rather nervous about this. Actually, though, it steers clear of some (though not all) of the gay stereotypes and presents us with a genuinely quite funny love story about two forty-somethings who meet in a nightclub. One, "Bobby" (Billy Eichner) is a ordinary looking, gobby podcaster and activist who is trying to raise the money needed for an American National LGBTQ+ museum. The other is "Aaron" (Luke Macfarlane) - a lawyer who spends a fair amount of time on the cross-fit. They wouldn't appear to be the most natural of fits but a series of brief encounters on their opening night coupled with a fair degree of sarcasm and a kiss sets the tone for what happens next. Certainly, anyone who has a Dekkoo subscription will have seen the format before - and often, and this doesn't really vary the theme much. What does make this different is the characters have much more depth. Their relationship is never going to be straightforward and though sometimes delivered via annoyingly angry monologues, the character of "Bobby" makes some fairly profound and well reasoned arguments about the constraints history has imposed on people of differing sexualities over the years. Eichner is effective as a man who uses his sharp and pithy tongue to prove the best form of defence is attack, Macfarlane proves to be far more than the man with the muscle, and the writing from the former and director Nicholas Stoller clearly demonstrates that both men have skin in this particular game. Experience has clearly informed and fuelled this creative process. It can be a bit hit or miss, especially the third quarter when it all becomes a bit contrived, but the ending redeems it rather - if only for the pure schmaltz of the serenade - and I rather enjoyed it. It sure doesn't need a cinema screening, but it is entertainingly provocative at times. The BBFC slide at the top warned of "strong sex". Clearly they have never watched "Theo and Hugo" (2016) because there is nothing at all visual in this that could conceivably cause offence; even the language is comparatively mild.

I went into this movie with no real expectations except from enjoying some of the directors previous comedies. The only real problem I had with this movie was Billy. His character is not likable and there were several times throughout the film where I wondered why anyone would want to be in a relationship with this person. I was not familiar with the other actor who played his boyfriend in the movie but he did a phenomenal job and was very sympathetic and portrayed aside of gay men that I do not see on film very often. Billy's character is catty, insecure, and loud. He's not sympathetic. I don't know if another actor could've pulled this off better, but Billy was definitely the problem with this movie. Which is funny because he wrote the movie for himself and portrayed himself as the least likable character in the entire film.

Ever since I knew I was gay, I've always been on the lookout for people of a similar nature, as humans naturally do. "Gay" people in film/tv have often been heavily stereotyped. EG the effeminate gay best friend, or the badass butch lesbian who is just one of the boys.

While bros does try a little bit harder to break through the stereotyped glass ceiling, it still falls into that category of trying so hard to be gay that it feels unrelatable to most gay people, and no doubt straight people as well.

It's not a bad movie and is quite entertaining, and is worth the watch for those elements. But a core idea of this movie is the normalisation of sexuality with society, which is something it fails to do.

Normalisation occurs when we have love stories between peole who happen to be gay, like Brokeback Mountain. A character's sexuality should not be the driving force behind the movie; the characters should be interesting in themselves in a variety of ways.

Oy vey, Bobby sure kvetches, pisses and moans endlessly throughout this movie, doesn't he? How can a nice guy like Aaron hook up with such a scold and malcontent? He must have the patience of a saint. But we the viewers are not.

We found a lot of laughs in BROS, and while it was great to see Harvey Fierstein and Debra Messing in the mix, it was, unfortunately, all tempered by Bobby's unpleasantness (he reminded us of an ex-friend who was too much of a pill to be around), and we wanted to bop him over the head with a rock-hard, week-old challah! I sure hope Billy Eichner isn't like this in real life!