“Bros” Movie Review

Story posted October 11, 2022 in CommRadio, Arts & Entertainment by Brennan Leahy

Have you ever wondered what a realistic aspect of being single within the LGBTQ+ community is like? “Bros,” directed by Nicholas Stoller and written by Billy Eichner, is the film to watch.

This romantic comedy features a queer star-studded cast including Billy Eichner, whom viewers may recognize from Billy on the Street, and actor Luke Macfarlane. The duo star in the film as an LGBT couple based in NYC attempting to navigate their love life and relationship with one another.

Billy Eichner’s character, Bobby Lieber, is a loud, intimidating and knowledgeable man who hosts a famous podcast and is a curator at the upcoming new National LGBTQ+ History Museum. In the film, it becomes clear that Bobby believes he is not ready to find love and strives to be single while casually meeting random men. Eventually, he runs into Luke Macfarlane’s character, Aaron Shepard, who plays the stereotypically hot but boring guy.

We begin to see throughout the film that Bobby’s mindset and feelings change. He begins to develop feelings for Aaron which confuses him because this is something he has not experienced before. The choice to include this event in the film was crucial as this is something that many members of the LGBTQ+ community have experienced in their life and can relate to as their feelings begin to develop and they discover new things about themselves.

As Bobby begins to start engaging with this new love interest, we learn that he is also dealing with external issues with the museum as he must find a new donor to support the opening of the museum. Bobby must find a way to enjoy his new love interest as well as get the museum up and running on schedule.

Bros had an excellent plot written with plentiful executions of jokes and relatable content that individuals within the LGBTQ+ community can agree upon.

Eichner and Macfarlane displayed sentimental yet sarcastic chemistry together in their own way.

Eichner’s character in the movie is a close reflection of how he is in his real-life show Billy on the Street. He even states from the beginning that his character could never write a rom-com, which is ironic since Eichner helped write the film’s script.

His character, loud and knowledgeable of queer history, portrays a plethora of what really happens within the LGBTQ+ community, from people acting masculine to attract others rather than being themselves as well as talking about how relationships are quite different compared to the stereotypical heterosexual romantic relationships.

“Bros” exhibits a variety of topics that are talked about among the LGBTQ+ community, such as body types, open relationships, sexual experiences, and is not gay enough.

The actors display these discussions in the film by portraying their characters to the fullest by changing the tones from humorous to heartfelt while speaking on serious topics.

One element that the film exhibits was when the characters would text each other and have voice-overs of the texts.

This added a humorous factor to the film since the text appeared like the average text of the stereotypical gay male. It also allowed the actors to take creative direction with how to only facial reactions towards the texts.

Overall, there were plenty of positives and negatives throughout the whole film.

Most of the jokes landed perfectly, especially when the straight heterosexual characters in the film poked fun at being comfortable speaking about what gay guys do within their free time.

Just like the straight characters, the queer cast had plenty of shots to fire back at straight people too hitting on how straight people are in the past now.

When showing intimate scenes, the direction of the actors took a toll on a mix of intimate comedic moments making audience members laugh.

The melting pot of music was a nice bonus since it set the mood of when a scene was going to transition into a quaint collage of romantic clips or into serious moments as well indicating elements of the character development from both Eichner and Macfarlane.

Even though Eichner’s and Macfarlane’s characters’ were the main protagonists, it felt like the other side characters were underdeveloped since they were not given a clear background other than their sexualities and their identities within the LGBTQ+ community.

They should have had titles of what they were known, like how Bobby Lieber was known as a podcast host and how Aaron Shepard was known as the hot, gay love interest to Bobby.

To put in to final words, the film “Bros” exhibits a variety of widespread humor about the queer community and what really goes on and hits the nail on the head for romance between two gay men.

Rating: 4/5

Brennan Leahy is a third-year majoring in public relations/advertising. To contact him, email bal5440@psu.edu.