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Once upon a time, in a less enlightened world than the one we live in now (that is, until the Supreme Court fucks it up in the near future, like they’re doing with abortion and women’s rights to their own bodies), Chris Rock told a dumb joke about same-sex marriage that went like this: “Gay people got a right to be as miserable as everybody else.”
Somebody should have slapped him.
Extending Rock’s bad joke to Bros, the first, real big-budgeted, major studio-produced, widely released R-rated gay rom-com motion picture, LGBTQ filmmakers have proven that they now have the same rights to make bad relationship-based rom-coms as do any other filmmaker.
Co-written and starring out comic actor Billy Eichner with co-writer and director Nicholas Stoller and comic gold producer (Girls, Trainwreck, The 40 Year Old Virgin), the film features a huge LGBTQ ensemble cast, nudity, frank sexual situations (but no frontal nudity, R-rating and all), and a gay storyline that thankfully doesn’t include the horrors of AIDS and/or LGBTQ bashing and/or a sad, anti-LGBTQ moralistic ending – all of this making Bros a boon for major studio filmmaking.
The only problem with Bros is that it is not funny, which, fortunately, has nothing to do with anyone being gay, out, naked or in any sexual situations, personally. The jokes are never inventive (I know the rom-com genre is a tried and true one, but at least try), rarely clever (despite that Eichner of Billy on the Street and Difficult People fame is known for his snark and wit), and hardly ever humorous. To make things worse, Eichner seems miserable and cranky the whole film, an actor (or his character, not sure now) stuck in an eternal wince.
The story of Bros surrounds podcaster, award-winning “Cis White Gay Man of the Year” and upcoming LGBTQ+ Museum of History and Culture co-curator Bobby (Eichner), a man who while having it all, doesn’t. What Bobby craves is a life beyond dating-fucking app hook-ups, someone to love. Maybe. Because most of the time, Bobby is either too insecure to go for a man of his dreams, or ultimately doesn’t have the time or empathy for love beyond sex. Though trite, Bobby’s back-and-forth is surely realistic: if you’re in a rom-com, the man has to be commitment phobic (unless it’s Judd Apatow’s Trainwreck with Amy Schumer where the woman is the hardcore noncommittal one). Also, if you’re in a rom-com, and you’re using au courant communication tools, you’re going to mention Meg Ryan’s You’ve Got Mail, while existing whole within Meg Ryan’s When Harry Met Sally cinematic universe (now trademarked by me, a la Marvel’s cinematic universe as the MRWHMSCU, which is too long an acronym to be catchy).
As with every rom-com, just when Bros’ main character is giving up on love, he meets his beefcake at the dance club in Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), a man that Bobby teases as boring (before trying to kiss Aaron), yet isn’t on any gay dating apps. Yes, Aaron plays the field (that very night, he’s off for a sexual rendezvous) but that isn’t a turn-off to Bobby. Yet. And what bonds them both is that each man things that “gay guys are so stupid.” Eureka. Common ground. Even though Bobby almost solely discusses LGBTQ history and the whole of the gay experience (something that Aaron will come to resent), and blanches when others DON’T, together they can pass judgement on everything – including the Hallmark Channel’s appropriation of gay culture, which is a fun dig.
Fun, but never really funny, as the men of Bros, Bobby and Aaron become an item, yet with so much of their own self-serving ways keeping each from real love together, to say nothing of Bobby’s perpetual discomfort (or just a look of pain, or an acting tic) and Aaron’s request – upon introducing his beau to his parents – to Bobby to perhaps “be a little less yourself for like three hours.” Be less gay is what Aaron is requesting, which is offensive to all. Then again, Bobby is just always so self-involved and self-interested that allowing any room for anyone else or outside conversation is anathema – how could an equal partnership exist between them when only one of them are trying to evolve?
For what is Bros supposed to be about but the freedom to love, and the freedom to be yourself.
So, Aaron and Bobby break up, but dissatisfied with life without each other (especially Bobby, who needs someone to rant at) they get back together with love as their guide, and everyone gets a happy ending. Save for the audience. Because as much as you expect that smart, witty script writers would have something bold to say about gay love in the 21st Century, they pretty much jumped on Meg Ryan cinematic tropes without the laugh lines.
