The rom-com reborn

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This article was published 30/09/2022 (1253 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Do you guys remember straight people?”

“Yeah. They had a nice run.”

This exchange between a lesbian and a trans woman — board members of a New York LGBTQ museum in the movie Bros — sticks its landing nicely, especially in the context of the Hollywood romantic comedy.

Let’s face it: the rom-com has been a moribund genre for a long stretch of time. The conventions have been played out so much, the last significant studio entry — the Rebel Wilson vehicle Isn’t It Romantic (2019) — was largely about how mortifyingly cliché-ridden the genre has become.

Bros, directed by Nicholas Stoller and co-scripted by Stoller and Billy Eichner, is being marketed as the first gay studio rom-com. (If the 1997 film In & Out might lay claim to that title, Bros makes the stipulation that almost its entire cast must be LGBTQ. Indeed, the film makes a point of gently mocking movies in which straight actors seem to automatically get Oscar consideration for playing gay characters.)

And it turns out that added layer of queer comedy shakes up the genre in exactly the right ways.

Bros is the funniest rom-com in years, maybe decades.

Eichner comes to the lead role of Bobby Leiber with a ready-made attitude of snarky cynicism courtesy of his Billy on the Street game show persona and his roles on everything from Parks and Recreation to Bob’s Burgers.

Bobby is a podcaster who has parlayed his fame and advocacy into a gig heading up the aforementioned LGBTQ museum. He also happens to be content with his single status … until he is not.

Upsetting his worldview is Aaron (Canadian actor Luke Macfarlane), a studly hunk with a sense of humour as formidable as his physique. Their flirtations in a club are disturbing to both men, who have embraced the freedom that comes with a contemporary gay lifestyle, encompassing kink, multiple partners and … no commitments.

Every element of the movie serves to refresh the tired tropes of the rom-com. Want a funny workplace? The committee Bobby attempts to lead is filled with every colour of the LGBTQ rainbow, each asserting their own agendas; a lesbian complains nobody remembers Lesbian History Month in March, and the bisexual complains bisexuals only get a week.

Want a scenic vacation interlude? A sequence in Provincetown, where Bobby discovers Aaron’s hidden talents as a fundraiser, is a little gem of fabulousness, bookmarked with appearances by both an up-and-coming gay star (Bowen Yang) and a seasoned veteran (Harvey Fierstein).

Speaking of cameos, without giving too much away, Will & Grace star Debra Messing has a lovely bit where she demonstrates that being perceived as an ally can be taken too far.

But truthfully, it’s largely Eichner’s show. Eichner has generally presented as a figure of towering, unassailable sarcasm, and while that dovetails with the character of Bobby, his character also has a credible soft side: Watch him weeping by himself over a Hallmark-style TV romance. (The gags at the expense of Hallmark movies come freely, despite the fact Luke Macfarlane is a veteran of a few of those films.)

Even a decade ago, the Hollywood studio system would have been content to give Eichner a career as the Gay Best Friend for a few years, slotting into a long tradition dating back to ’30s actors such as Franklin Pangborn or Edward Everett Horton.

Hollywood evolves hard. Eichner has facilitated a giant leap forward, and he does it by showing all audiences a solid good time.

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