By Meg Shields

Despite being billed as a satire, Bros is, formally speaking, a familiar bedfellow within the rom-com space. Nicholas Stoller’s crowdpleaser slots in nicely alongside a long lineage of anti-romantic comedies so named for their fiercely independent protagonists who find their way from cynicism to sentimentality in the presence of The One Person who breaks down their walls. Billy Eichner stars as Bobby, a self-described emotionally unavailable podcast host and queer historian whose entire, aggressively lampshaded identity hinges on no-strings-attached hookups and proud singlehood. One chance encounter later, Bobby is shocked to find himself falling for Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), a small-town country boy who loves Garth Brooks, hockey, and CrossFit.

Ostensibly, Bros’ subversive gesture lies in its frank, sexually positive spotlight on a romance between two gay men. Sure we’ve seen opposites attract before. But have we ever seen it with dead-eyed Grindr hookups, poppers, and a romantic getaway to Provincetown? On the one hand, it’s worth acknowledging what Bros brings to the table, namely: what if Nora Ephron but, get this, gay. It is an affirming sign of the times that a feel-good, interminably watchable rom-com about gay men gets to be just as middle of the road and okay as any of its straight peers. This, surely, is progress.

Bros is at its best when it’s not trying to universalize the messiness of Bobby or Aaron’s romance or their individual experiences as gay men. And at times, it feels like this is the position that both Stoller and Eichner (the film’s co-writer) are trying to push: that gay folks and their stories are not a palatable monolith. This runs counter to the film’s frequently intoned thesis statement that most movies, stories, and histories about queer folks are nearly entirely written by (and often for) the straights. For all the pop culture sources the film cites (including a Dear Evan Hansen dig that killed with TIFF audiences), Bros’ narratively convenient myopia for long-existing queer-made media feels narratively convenient at best and hypocritical at worst.

Meg Shields