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‘Bros’ review: Billy Eichner is a glorious rom-com lead
(from left) Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) and Bobby (Billy Eichner) in Bros, co-written, produced and directed by Nicholas Stoller. Photo Credit: Universal Pictures
CHICAGO - Step aside, Hugh Grant and Diane Keaton, the pantheon of great, neurotic rom-com leads has found a recent king in Billy Eichner. Best known for yelling at people on the street (or yelling at them in the "Parks and Recreation" offices), Eichner unveils a softer but no less high-strung version of himself in "Bros," his new Judd Apatow-produced studio rom-com about two gay men "maybe, possibly, probably, stumbling towards love. Maybe. They&#x;re both very busy."
As a romantic comedy, "Bros" is a fun time at the movies, jam-packed with genuine laughs that make up for its at times more surface-level pathos. As a message statement, it&#x;s a clumsy if well-meaning celebration of the LGBTQ+ community. But as a showcase for Eichner, it&#x;s an absolute knockout. Those who watched his labor on the secret gem Hulu c
The groundbreaking queer rom-com delivers on both the “romantic” and the “comedy.”
Near the beginning of Bros, Bobby Lieber (Billy Eichner) meets with a Hollywood executive. The exec wants our protagonist to compose a script for a gay rom-com. The executive is after something straightforward, a script that is palatable to straight audiences, a story about “nice gay guys.” Bobby, of course, isn’t having it. He tells the executive that gays hold different stories than straight people before leaving, movie deal dead in the room.
The implication is clear. Bros is going to be a diverse kind of story, one that eschews heteronormativity and recontextualizes the romantic comedy for a queer lens. That’s a pretty tall request for a movie distributed by Universal and produced by the king of the bro-comedy himself, Judd Apatow. And while director Nicholas Stoller has made some pretty stellar comedies, he’s still a straight director known for making mainstream movies. Considering all that, could this really be the film to break the mold on queer stories made by Hollywood?&n
Bros
Film title: Bros
Director: Nicholas Stoller
Starring: Billy Eichner, Luke Macfarlane
Release date: 28 Nov
Certificate: 15
“Straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for Bros,” was Billy Eichner's excuse for the underperformance of the North American release of his feel-good, LGBTQ+ inclusive romcom. A strange contradiction given the film opens with his character, Bobby Leiber – an emotionally closed-off podcast host – recalling a disastrous film pitch where he became indignant at Hollywood's demands for a gay romance movie that “even straight people could enjoy”. Bobby insists “our stories are not your stories”, before embarking on a love story so cliché it makes Love, Simon look like The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The protagonist’s run-of-the-mill feistiness proves the movie's undoing. What could have been an expressionless but occasionally chuckle-able flick is now smugly trashing “Hallheart specials” as kitsch while simultaneously using some of their most eye-rolling tropes. Independent Bobby becomes entangled in h
Review: 'Bros' Is A Good Top In Search Of A Decent Bottom
If there&#;s one battle I have valiantly been waging my entire life, it&#;s been the &#;Gay people don&#;t have to be nice&#; one. Just ask anyone I have ever encountered on the subway. So when Bobby Leiber (Billy Eichner) proudly proclaims exactly that when confronted with the beatific-goons of the Queer Eye gang early on in Bros, the gay rom-com out this weekend that Eichner wrote and Nicholas Stoller (of Neighbors and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) directed, I will admit I felt seen. Gay bastards unite! Of course, Eichner&#;s been a one-man-mission on that front for years, having made his fame by running up and down the streets screaming obnoxious things in people&#;s faces in his &#;Billy on the Street&#; videos, and then later playing a sneer machine on his brilliantly acerbic sitcom Difficult People. This has been important representation for us angry, impatient homosexuals!
Here, his character of Bobby is a podcast star who&#;s managed to maneuver said podcast fame into becoming a museum planner &#; and no,