"Bros" - Film Review
Bobby Leiber (Billy Eichner) has a successful radio show and podcast centered around his chronic single status and his hook-up misadventures in New York City. He’s also a curator for the upcoming LGBTQ+ History Museum. While at a party, Bobby meets Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), a similarly single, commit-avoiding gay guy. They bond over their lack of desire for a relationship, but of course it’s throughout these conversations that they begin to develop feelings for each other.
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For a movie that prides itself on being a queer film, Bros gets a bit lost along the way. It’s as though Eichner is trying, not in a meaningful way, to relate to straight people by having his main character rag on gay guys in a borderline homophobic way. Bobby acts as if he has something to prove by separating himself from the rest of his community. Yeah, he’s gay, but he’s not one of those gay guys and that makes him superior. Or at least that’s what Bobby believes about himself. It’s exhausting. Bobby teases Aaron for liking “bro-y meatheads,” but that’s the only type of guy Bobby goes after too. He never recognizes the double standard he has created.
Bros feels like a product of a 2016 Tumblr post. It’s chock-full of far too many pop culture references that feel dated, despite the fact that this is a 2022 release. The actors stumble over these jokes in a way that only draws more attention to their awkwardness. The humor will likely work for people who enjoy Eichner’s Billy on the Street, but even then, the schtick wears thin. Bobby’s grumpy persona lacks the necessary softness to make him an interesting character to follow. He’s self-centered and arrogant, which isn’t uncommon for a rom com, but Bobby doesn’t want to change. He wants the world to bend to his desires and it certainly doesn’t help that Eichner can’t make the quiet moments land.
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In trying to create a big-budget gay rom com appeals to everyone, Bros turns its back on the community it is trying to celebrate. The topic of movies comes up a few times in conversations between Bobby and Aaron. They discuss all the straight actors who have played sad, gay cowboys to win an Oscar, and how these movies are all tragic. And they are. That’s not to say that Hollywood doesn’t have an issue with giving queer people their happy endings, but for a film that is so adamant about rewriting history to include LGBT stories, where’s the celebration of pioneering queer filmmakers? Yes, many mainstream LGBT films fall into the trauma for the sake of trauma, but independent queer filmmakers have always created meaningful, truthful depictions of their lived experiences.
Bros is too obsessed with its own ideas of grandeur. Like the first-of-its-kind LGBTQ history museum Bobby is trying to open, Bros believes that it will single-handedly save queer cinema. However, queer cinema never needed saving in the first place.
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