Bobby (Billy Eichner) is weeks away from opening the LGBTQ+ History Museum in New York City, but while his professional dreams are about to come true, there is a part of his life that still feels empty; though he would never admit it willingly.  Without a partner and working his way through his 40s, Bobby has not met the man to settle down with and has replaced the need for what he considers a heteronormative idea of the perfect life substituting a combination of close friendships and random hookups for a more traditional relationship.  Content with his life, everything changes when he meets Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) at the club, a successful lawyer by day and hunky pretty boy by night, the unlikely duo swap numbers, and as a surprise to them both begin bonding outside of the bedroom, too. 

Universal Studios proudly presents Bros, what they have been quick to market as the first gay adult romantic comedy to receive a wide theatrical release from a major studio. Directed by Nicholas Stoller with assistance on the page from Billy Eichner, the 115-minute film follows the typical ebbs and flows of the rom-com formula, but through the lens of its queer protagonist, Bobby.  The film was also boosted in its leadup for its casting by Gayle Keller who filled in the various queer roles of the film with queer actors, and while Bros does feel a little less focus-grouped and a little more authentic with its use of LGBTQ+ references and slang than other films, it is hard to pinpoint that as just a byproduct from the casting process or rather the runoff from all levels of the creative process working together. 

Eichner is at the center of the film, a middle-aged podcaster who is both frustrated with life and resigned to accepting it.  Having helped to write the script, Eichner’s passion for this project is clear from the first frame through to the last, and that dedication and desire to tell a queer adult story that is not a stuffy, repressed tragedy helps audiences stay with the film when the script begins to tread water in the way-too-long second act.  Despite the studio’s posturing of bucking trends and breaking ground, Stoller and Eichner cannot help but favor the Bobby character by giving him the heaviest saturation of laugh lines.  It is to be expected as one half of the leading pair of a rom-com, but Bobby is written with all the stereotypical cattiness and mannerisms the film is wont to call out, careening the narrative into this strange realm where it feels self-aware, but never leans far enough into it for audiences to be sure.  The result is that Bobby, at the end of the various sequences, finds himself out of breath from his latest tirade and, unable to really transition down and out from the situation, Eichner and Stoller simply have him throw his hands up in disbelief and then quickly begin writing the next sequence to repeat the process. 

The absolute insufferable nature of Bobby is the weight that really pulls this film down from working in all the other aspects, noble as those intentions are. His larger-than-life personality means that there is no room for the other characters in this universe; Bobby is the sun, and there are no planets that orbit him, only space dust at best. With the exception of Aaron – and only because by nature of the story he has enough screen time to make an impression – everyone else that Bobby interacts with are quickly turned into punching bags for his pointed and unnecessarily mean wit. The film never fully explores Bobby using this snarky humor as a defense mechanism, and while he does have the standard third act grandstanding performance where he tries to win Aaron back, Bobby has lost all goodwill with audiences by this point, and Eichner does not sell the change of heart no matter how much he pouts his lip and quivers his eyes. 

It is a shame because Bros has a wide cast that lends visibility to many people and seeks to do so in a positive light. The script has its heart in the right place, pointing accusations at the trend of heterosexual actors running the awards circuit for being so brave by playing a repressed cowboy, and the trials of kissing another man on screen, while wholly ignoring the identity struggles faced by queer and questioning people in real life. In this way, Bros is incredibly forward and inclusive, but the thorniness of Bobby makes it hard to settle in, made worse by how he pushes everyone away from him and demeans them relentlessly. There is a twinge of irony here because the film is making broad sweeps at a deep catalog of films brought to screen by queer creators, and while Brokeback Mountain (2005), Call My By Your Name (2017), and The Power of the Dog (2021) all used as the easy punchlines here as they were helmed by straight creators, that Bros is presenting itself as interested in giving a voice to the marginalized and highlighting queer icons of the past, yet completely ignores queer cinema so that it can wear the crown of being the “first” is in poor taste. Further, it is a title only achieved by the slew of modifiers which allows for the Twentieth Century/Fox erasure because Love, Simon (2018) is a teen rom-com and Fire Island (2022) went straight to Hulu.  

Thankfully, Aaron is much more palpable than Bobby, even in his stubbornness. The Hallmark-hunk, Macfarlane, has his career slightly lampooned in Bros as it finds him playing a big city lawyer with dreams of being a small-town chocolatier, in addition to the fictional Hallhark channel coming out with evermore progressive holiday titles in the world of the film. It is all in good fun, the kind of broad appeal cultural humor that works well because it is not so finely tuned-in and workshopped to already appear dated in the time it took to write the joke and premiere the film. Macfarlane is the more reserved of the two, and the film paints Aaron, especially very early on, as the empty-headed and vapid oaf of the film only in search of a quick lay. As the story progresses, it is revealed that he has a good heart, and while he may not be as forward as Bobby, he is not drowning in some internalized homophobia as the film is seemingly trying to posit in the first act. Stoller and Eichner seem a little unsure of how to handle Aaron as his character is used often as a master key to fit into whatever situation the characters find themselves in and he can provide the escape route. To Macfarlane’s credit, he makes Aaron quite likable and he does not always feel like a screenwriting multi-tool when we are in the moment, but as one tracks the story it becomes clear that Aaron is whatever the writing team needed him to be at that time. 

As far as romantic comedies go, Bros works through the standard machinations of plot, not deviating too far from the modern template, while incorporating observational aspects of MSM dating in today’s logged-on society. Overall, the film would have benefited greatly from better chemistry between the two leading men, more growth from Bobby, and allowing Aaron to run the story instead of being so passive. Its long middle act could have been better served within the genre by subbing out Bobby’s condescending, albeit informative, monologues about queer figures in history with more moments where the men can have actual conversations and grow closer. As is, there are really only two scenes that show them learning about each other; after their first night together and later on the beach after Pride. It is a tough line to draw, however, as one of the goals of the story is to highlight queer stories, but a little more ingenuity on the page would have gone a long way instead of driving the plot to a halt so that Bobby can lecture. The film ends with the opening of the museum and a big performance that is supposed to show how much Bobby has learned and that a relationship is about compromise, but he really only arrived at that realization through selfish regret, and the film gives little indication that he has actually grown as a person. In an effort to get some final laughs squeezed out of the picture, the museum is treated like a total joke, catering, much like Bros itself is doing, to the heterosexual masses by sanitizing and downplaying elements of queer identity. There is a poignant moment as the camera pans across the faces of those of whom history has altered their identity to become more palatable to the pearl-clutchers who write the history books, but that the entire museum is written off as an extended sight gag feels like a slap in the face to everyone the film is trying to speak for.

Bros stumbles. A lot. And while there are a few moments of fun contained in the two hours, in its ambition to be the story of the millions of queer people erased and silenced by history, it fails to be a real success both as vindication for those generations of queer people, or on the most basic level a good film. Enjoyable, at times, in the moment, it quickly fades as the credits roll. The film never quite reaches the level of importance that it ascribed to itself; it is a voice, but it silences those it is seeking to represent as the trope-riddled Bobby pushes everyone to the sidelines to the point where many of the secondary and tertiary characters’ names can hardly be recalled. In that same way, the film pushes away the audience it seeks to attract as it propagates that there is only one way to be gay – Bobby’s way – coupled with its belittling humor that is more likely to alienate the straight audience instead of informing them about aspects of culture and history they may not be aware of. It is, above all, a frustrating work because of its good intentions, but through a series of wrong turns on the page, it will do a bigger disservice to the LGBTQ+ market as its muted reception outside of the festival circuit and poor box office will guide the studio brass boardroom decisions far more than the few vocal supporters Bros did manage.