When Bobby Met Aaron …
The result is “Bros,” one of the funniest, smartest, warmest and most enjoyable romantic comedies in recent years — a 21st century update of classic films of the genre from the 1980s and 1990s and 2000s, from “When Harry Met Sally …” to “You’ve Got Mail,” from “Notting Hill” to “Love, Actually,” from “Four Weddings and a Funeral” to “Jerry Maguire.”
To be sure, this is a special moment for movies, seeing as how this is a mainstream, theatrical release, R-rated gay rom-com featuring a cast of LGBTQ actors, and of course we should salute that — but for all its forward-thinking casting, cutting-edge references, sexual frankness and cultural awareness, “Bros” should also be celebrated for creating an instant near-classic of the genre, filled with so many of the touchstones we’ve come to expect from romantic comedies and featuring crisp writing and a host of richly layered performances from actors who can handle quick comedy as well as legit drama.
It’s all here, from the Meet Cute to the Awkward Early Courtship Scenes to the Wisecracking Friends Who Exist Mainly to Comment on Your Life to the Scene Where They Buy a Christmas Tree, and we could keep going but you know the formula — and in the hands of director/co-writer Nicholas Stoller (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “The Five-Year Engagement,”) and co-writer/star Billy Eichner, “Bros” hits the bullseye on so many rom-com notes, albeit in a very 2022 setting with a wonderfully diverse cast of supporting players. This is a story set in the world of Grindr and throuples and poppers and bottom/top talk and a first date that turns into a foursome, and the situations in “Bros” are rooted in gay culture, but this is primarily a story about two human beings who have been saying forever they’re not looking for love — but maybe they’ve been looking in all the wrong places, you know?
Eichner proves to have leading-man chops and delivers a complete, complex and winning performance as one Bobby Lieberman, a New Yorker who hosts a popular podcast called “The 11th Brick,” so named because he’s a cis white gay man, and he figures a cis white gay man was about the 11th person to throw a brick at Stonewall. (Podcasting is the go-to profession in movies these days, just as advertising or working for a magazine were the go-to gigs in 1990s movies.)
Bobby is 40, single and perfectly content hooking up for random sexual encounters, or so he proclaims on his podcast — and his career is soaring, what with him being honored as “Cis White Gay Man of the Year” and getting tabbed as the director of a new museum of LGBTQ+ history and culture. (The board members are played by Ts Madison, Jim Rash, Eve Lindley, Miss Lawrence and Dot-Marie Jones, and they make for a fantastic ensemble.) He’s also intense to the point of coming across as angry at the world at times, and he has a way of dominating a room, perhaps to an extent he doesn’t quite realize. He’s incredibly self-aware except for the times when he’s really not.
When Bobby meets the square-jawed, Disney-cartoon-handsome jock-lawyer Aaron (Luke Macfarlane, doing terrific work), he’s instantly drawn to him — and surprised to learn there’s more to Aaron than baseball caps and the gym and casual, hot sex. The more time they spend together, the more they let down their respective guards and enter into that lovely, exhilarating, terrifying phase of possibly falling in love.
With the esteemed composer Marc Shaiman (who scored “When Harry Met Sally …” and “Sleepless in Seattle”) literally setting the tone and cinematographer Brandon Tost lensing Manhattan (and a foray to Provincetown) in warm and magical tones reminiscent of Nora Ephron and Woody Allen films, “Bros” expertly toggles between moments of high comedy and dramatic reveals. (In a particularly moving scene, Bobby delivers a heartbreaking monologue about being told to “tone it down” his entire life.)
Aaron has commitment issues and Bobby has insecurity issues, and despite their obvious and true love for one another, they keep running into roadblocks. Along the way, “Bros” offers a steady stream of knowing commentary with a barrage of pop culture references, with Bobby talking about how straight men playing gay men in mainstream movies often meet with tragic fates (“Brokeback Mountain,” “Milk”), and noting how a Hallmark-type movie channel is now embracing LGBTQ+ content because it’s profitable. Kind of a meta moment, given Macfarlane has starred in a number of Hallmark Channel movies.) We also get some wonderful cameos from Harvey Fierstein, Bowen Yang, Kristen Chenoweth and most notably Debra Messing as herself, who is exhausted from gay men asking her advice for the last 25 years because they think of her as Grace from “Will & Grace.” (“I was ACTING! I won an Emmy!”)
Of course, we realize Bobby and Aaron are right for one another long before they figure it out, but isn’t that always the way? Bobby keeps making the point that “love is love” is a marketing slogan and it’s more complicated than that, and he’s right — but in the end, it all comes down to Love, Actually.
