Eichner stars as Bobby Leiber, whom we\u2019re told is a \u201cpodcast powerhouse,\u201d though he\u2019s only ever seen doing that job \u2013 and not really doing it, since he\u2019s on camera and taking live calls \u2013 in the opening sequence, presumably as a device for quick and easy exposition. He spends most of his time heading the board of directors for New York\u2019s soon-to-open LGBTQ+ history museum, spending time with his friends, and being proudly single; \u201cYou cobble together a version<\/em> of a romantic single life,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot more than a lot of other people have in this life. And you try to remember that.\u201d With a potential partner, he\u2019s more blunt: \u201cNo one is more emotionally unavailable than I am! I pride myself on it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But this is a romantic comedy, so we of course must operate under the assumption that such a life cannot possibly be emotionally satisfying. One night, at a launch party for a dating app, he meets Aaron (the charming Luke Macfarlane), who is equally non-committal. But (again, this is a romantic comedy) they start seeing each other casually, and then not as casually, and then they\u2019re dating in spite of themselves, but then complications ensue, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bros<\/em> works best in its early passages, before Eichner and Stoller\u2019s script turns itself over, without much struggle, to the rom-com machinery. That\u2019s because those early scenes are the ones keenly concerned with the contemporary gay male experience: the frustrations of text\/message flirting (\u201cCan you like my \u2018later,\u2019 bitch?\u201d), the struggle of trying to take a good dirty pic, the complexities of gay desire (\u201cHonestly it\u2019s been a blast catering to your whims, and I can\u2019t really say anything because I do it all the time!\u201d), and the mechanics of gay sex (especially in group setting).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scenes are funny, unsurprisingly, and some of the biggest laughs come from little throwaway gags, like an ongoing preoccupation with the grudgingly inclusive Christmas movies of the \u201cHallheart Channel\u201d (their first bi Christmas movie is called Christmas with Either<\/em>), or Bobby telling Aaron, \u201cYou\u2019re like a grown-up gay boy scout and I\u2019m like\u2026 whatever happens to Evan Hansen.\u201d Eichner\u2019s comic timing is aces \u2013 watch how savvily he uses the wine glass as a prop during an uncomfortable conversation with Aaron\u2019s parents \u2013 and Stoller, as usual, is very good at getting a laugh with a cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the funniest stretches of the script are those that are most specific, and the frankness of the sex scenes are the most refreshing \u2013 these flashes are exciting, because (true to the exhausting advance hype) they\u2019re things we haven\u2019t really seen before in many mainstream movies. The trouble is that so much of the picture is spent squeezing it into the straightjacket of the conventional romantic comedy. Their script explicitly name-checks You\u2019ve Got Mail <\/em>and When Harry Met Sally<\/em>, among others, and there are laughs to be had in satirizing or subverting the tropes \u2013 scoring a lightning-fast, cold and awkward Grindr hookup with \u201cOur Love Is Here to Stay,\u201d for example, or a later round of rough sex play and poppers to Nat King Cole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Eichner and Stoller want to have it both ways (if you\u2019ll pardon the pun). We\u2019ve thoroughly romanticized the romantic comedy these days, since they\u2019ve become such an endangered species, that it\u2019s easy to forget how many of them were subpar, or how even the good ones often utilized tiresome, dusty clich\u00e9s. Bros <\/em>too frequently embraces those clich\u00e9s, with predictable break-ups resulting from misunderstandings based on split second timing, for example, or reunions forged by public declarations of love, or the endless walk-and-talk montages, set to a war crime of a score by Marc Shaiman that drowns the soundtrack in soupy, plinky swill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And unlike the best rom-coms (or the better works of its producer and guiding influence, Judd Apatow), the picture cannot seem to navigate the comingling of comedy and drama, so when it flips into fight and break-up mode, the already waning laugh lines disappear altogether. That becomes a real problem, because the dramatic dialogue is overstuffed with clich\u00e9s and maudlin sap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apatow\u2019s influence is also felt in the outcome of the picture (spoilers, but, yet again, this is a romantic comedy<\/em>), which amounts to \u201cTrainwreck<\/em>, but gay.\u201d In an early meeting of the museum board, Eichner sneers at the idea of an exhibit about gay marriage because of its heteronormativity, but as with Apatow\u2019s earlier Amy Schumer comedy about a freewheeling good-time girl, any subversion of societal norms is all but undone by slapping on a conventional, conservative-tinged resolution \u2013 the happily ever after required of the genre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, Bros<\/em> has laughs, a bit of warmth, and some charming performances, but it\u2019s a prime example of toothless progress: Representation matters, yes, but it can only go so far. The argument to such criticisms, at least historically, is that they have to give us the safe, conventional version of the mainstream big-studio gay rom-com before we can really get something fresh and specific. But\u2026 what if we just skipped that step?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Bros” is out today in theaters.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/bros2-scaled-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nC<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n