‘Homophobic Weirdos’ Don’t Explain the Failure of Bros

Y ou can almost feel sorry for Billy Eichner. Best known for Funny or Die’s Billy on the Street, a comedy game show where he harangues random people with a microphone, he is now haranguing moviegoing audiences for not seeing his new gay rom-com in theaters. Universal’s Bros was supposed to be a game-changer, the first big-tent theatrical gay comedy in film history! Aggressively marketed as “a gay movie for straights,” it has turned out to attract neither gays nor straights, with a meager $4.8 million opening weekend.

Naturally, in Eichner’s world, it’s all the straights’ fault. The actor took to Twitter to denounce the “homophobic weirdos” who, mysteriously, weren’t compelled to seek out a cinema where they could watch him put Luke Macfarlane’s entire fist in his mouth on the big screen. (Still kinkier action was lost in the edits, we are told.) Meanwhile, critical reviews from the few writers he hasn’t bribed for puff pieces are spelling out the obvious: Gay or straight, one does not simply drop a starless, Judd Apatow-produced rom-com in spooky season, in theaters, in 2022, and expect it to be a hit.

It’s also been noted that Brokeback Mountain seemed to have no trouble finding an audience and collecting awards in 2005. Eichner’s pitch, however, is a much tougher sell. It was one thing when Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger were tragically snogging each other in cowboy hats. After all, that had Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, and tragedy, and cowboy hats.

But Eichner doesn’t want to be tragic. He wants to be funny. Occasionally, he succeeds in spite of himself. His character, Bobby Lieber, is a thinly veiled self-portrait, transparently channeling his own deep-seated insecurities. Bobby’s repeated attempts to butch up faintly evoke the old ’90s hit The Birdcage. But The Birdcage was Robin Williams doing Martha Graham (Martha Graham! Martha Graham!), and Nathan Lane doing John Wayne, and the ’90s, and South Beach. It was a film that knew precisely what, where, and when it was. Whereas Bros is, “What if an angsty white-bread millennial gay crossed Larry Kramer’s Faggots with every Meg Ryan movie ever?”

Bobby’s hunky masc lawyer crush, Aaron (Macfarlane), actually makes a likable big-studio debut as the charmingly basic gym bunny to Eichner’s hyper-neurotic activist. Unfortunately, he’s not quite as likable as Eichner is insufferable. Right from an opening scene where Bobby spells out his philosophy of gay-romance writing to a film producer, this movie telegraphs that it is very much about itself. Bobby’s improbable leap from podcasting to LGBTQ+ museum-planning then provides a contrived plot excuse for him to assume his rightful place in queer history. We’re still supposed to think he’s an obnoxious motor-mouth, but we’re also supposed to sort of buy it when he launches into a Provincetown-beach monologue about how yes, the world caught up, but “it didn’t catch up fast enough.” (Luckily, Aaron is there too, looking patient and shirtless.)

The tedium is relieved by some brief flashes of old-school camp from the supporting cast, though they have so little screen time they feel more like cameos. Still, the black queens, the loud lesbian, and the whiny bisexual make the most of their conference-table one-liners. Bowen Yang steals his one scene as a touchy donor who agrees to fork over $5 million only on condition that the museum install a Gay Trauma Coaster. Moments like these, where the script pauses to embrace its own niche-ness, are actually funny. I even laughed at the theater — all by myself.

But Eichner doesn’t want to be niche. He wants to be just niche enough to feel Historic, yet still mainstream enough to be adored on a grand scale. One moment, he is grabbing the microphone to announce that “Love is Not Love,” actually, that gay relationships have “different rules,” and that the irony is the point as various obscenely awkward tableaux play out to a nostalgic jazz soundtrack. The next moment, he’s fumbling for viewers’ heartstrings with cute, vulnerable dialogue and Hallmark-y montages. Then he shouts at them for still preferring stories where the sex part might have stakes.

Still, there are fleeting moments of Kramer-esque lucidity here. Bobby’s opening monologue brutally narrates a cold, awkward Grindr hookup, followed by his usual lonely walk around the city. He feels discarded and a bit soiled, yet he knows he will do it all over again. At one point, he compares gay relationships to a clown car: “There’s another! Oh, there’s another! And another!”

And yet, he insists on having it both ways, which is precisely what he can’t do. He can’t half-mimic the oeuvre of a When Harry Met Sally while utterly subverting its substance. Consider: When Harry and Sally finally “do it,” it’s the turning point of their movie. Why? Because something has changed. Something has shifted under their feet. And though they can’t say it out loud, they both understand they can’t go back. It’s forward or nothing. This is the essence of the romantic dance between man and woman. It is unique, and it is irreplaceable.

Eichner seems to acknowledge this in a define-the-relationship conversation with Aaron, when he snarkily refers to “that classic scene where Billy Crystal runs to Meg Ryan and asks if she wants an open relationship.” Who would have gone to see that movie? Eichner implicitly asks the question, but does he really want to hear the answer?

By his own finale, Bobby has reached acceptance, publicly serenading Aaron with soulful lyrics like, “When we first made love/There weren’t two of us, there were four,” or, “We don’t have to get married, babe. This is our romance.” Then, fittingly, he steals a ring from a woman to get down on one knee and ask, “I know we’re not relationship people . . . but will you date me for three months and then we can reassess?” Aaron grins: “Yes, Bobby Lieber. I will.” “What’s going on, mommy?” asks the small son of friends in the audience. It’s an eminently fair question.

A little epilogue fast-forwards us to that three months later, where the two lovers decide that things are going “pretty well.” They might give it three more months, or a year, or more. Or less. Who knows? “This love is free!” Bobby has already sung. By which he means, in the end, that nobody has to pay for it.

Editor’s note: When originally posted, this article misidentified the town of Provincetown.