There are comedic personalities in this world that we are more attune to than others. I have heralded the comedic talents of Nicholas Stoller as a director many times over on this very blog and will hopefully continue to do so (spoilers, I will be doing so now). Pair this with the immense talents of Billy Eichner, an individual who I find so intensely funny nearly every time he speaks that there is nobody whose film I would want to see more when it comes to big budget comedies. Pair these two together, with Stoller director a script written by both men, starring Eichner in the lead role, in the Judd Apatow mould of find a funny person and make a film ideal for their persona and you end up usually with a success story. Bros is yet another one. Bros is certainly the funniest film of the year and one of the best and most enjoyable too.
There is a part of me that could list the things wrongs with this film later, but in actuality I want to note them know, after all I feel you could already guess them with the knowledge of it being an Apatow rom-com. It’s a little too long, the conflict has a hat on a hat quality to it that is frustrating and goes on far too long, the overall balance of comedy styles eventually levels out but is a little mish-mash to begin with, and overall can never manage the shift from dramatic scenes to comedic sequences. But… this is all hand in hand with the film being exactly what it wants to be, the first major big-budget gay rom-com. Now that could be seen easily as a fan of the film passing off flaws with some sort of knowingness that may or may not actually have been present, but in a way Eichner and Stoller here for me are intentionally falling into all the tropes of a typical rom-com, whilst also exploring them. Again this is all to say though that most importantly the film is a comedy first. It has romance and drama in spades and the romance is romantic and effective and the drama is surprisingly well-fleshed out and constant throughout. But the film is joyfully a full-blown comedy too. The film is also very knowing of its place in cinema history and at times will touch upon lightly or will at times stop in its tracks to note the drama of the situation. Perhaps it is the pained gravity of that tragic period of history, but whenever Eichner and Stoller decide to touch upon the horrors of the past, it never feels like the film is making a comedy vehicle for such ideas to be presented. Instead it feels like the film is a touching and human love story that with it being of two gay men cannot ignore certain horrid truths of the past, and of course present.
Eichner as a
performer is his always brilliant self; funny to an absolute fault, delivering his
one-liners with his typical perfection and the other comedic moments with just
as much talent and capability. Eichner is a leading man revelation and has a
bounty of complex charisma that makes this character of Bobby, albeit very clearly
moulded upon Eichner himself, the perfect vessel for all of his talents to be
brought to the screen. This leads onto the fact that Eichner is also
dramatically superb here. Multiple dramatic monologues are no bother for him at
all and in fact are some of the best moments in the film. The same critique can
be placed upon them as the film entire however that on the page and in the
final cut they are all a touch too long here and there and in a way it is unfortunate
to hear director interviews commenting on whole comedic sequences being lifted,
it’s not that I would wish for these very successful and needed dramatic scenes
to be lifted in place of, however a cut here and there would allow for more of
what the film is best at, which is being absolutely bloody hilarious when it
chooses to be. Luke Macfarlane is the counterpoint in this romance and is
similarly immensely funny and immensely touching when needed to be, as well as
incredibly charismatic. Eichner and Macfarlane have great chemistry and it does
lead to the overall romance of the piece to be as effective as it needs to be
for a film like this to work as well as this one does. Beyond our leads, hilarious
cameos are plentiful and never grating or have the possibility to take one out
of the film. A large plotline of the film is that of Eichner’s current job as a
curator of the first LGBTQ+ museum, here we find a selection of performers; Miss
Lawrence, T.S. Madison, Jim Rash, Dot-Marie Jones and Eve Lindley, who really
do offer as a group many of the funniest dialogue exchanges of the film and
many of the most pointed when it comes to the proud queer nature of the film itself.
Bowen Yang too is wonderful and funny as always in his small role here. In-fact
everyone is terrific and the whole thing does come together to make for one of
the better rom-coms of our current times, even if indeed as aforementioned it’s
a touch long here and there.
A wonderfully joyous 8/10 rom-com that wears on it’s sleave and deconstructs many historical elements with its release. Eichner and Stoller have indeed made a film that is as much about its place in queer history on screen, as it is a solid rom-com in its own right. The film does the romance and drama very well, but is by far above all else flawlessly hilarious. Quite literally not a single joke didn’t land for me. Eichner’s sense of humour is mine to a tee, but if it’s also yours, I defy you to not have a good time with this one.
P.S. SPOLIERS if you don’t like knowing cameos… There is a certain cameo in this film from a popular star of stage and screen, in particular in this case the small screen that was so intensely hilarious and brilliantly performed that it has become the first cameo to ever receive a short list nomination for The Thomas Carruthers Awards. Will she make it to the final five nominations? Probably not, however every single one of the cameos in this film was hilarious and perfectly chosen, and all so knowingly performed by the actors that once again the film does better on the majority of comedies we get nowadays.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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