Bros
Cert: 15
★★★★✩

New York-born gay Jewish comedian Billy Eichner (Funny Or Die, Billy on The Street, Parks and Recreation) stars in this raunchy and hilariously funny romantic comedy from long-time Judd Apatow collaborator Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him To The Greek).

Written by Eichner and Stoller and produced by Apatow, Bros also happens to be— unbelieveably — the very first gay romcom to be released by a major Hollywood studio.

The film had its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival in September and was released stateside shortly after that, where it sadly disappointed at the box office.

Can it do better in the UK?

Neurotic podcaster and nice Jewish boy Bobby Lieber (Eichner) isn’t one for dating. In between his numerous writing, presenting and public-speaking engagements, the famous LGBTQ campaigner has also scored a new role as the director of New York’s first LGBTQ history museum.

While more than open to meaningless hook-ups from online dating sites, Billy has grown tired of chasing men who have little interest in him as a person.

Bros 4

MacFarlane and Eichner

Then he meets Aaron (Brothers and Sisters alum Luke Macfarlane), a handsome, yet equally jaded lawyer who likes to play the field but is unwilling to have a meaningful relationship with anyone.

The two are swept into a friendship which soon turns into romance, with both parties unsure of what they want from the other. As they are repeatedly drawn to each other, both men begin to show their vulnerable side.

Quite aside from the fact that it exists at all, perhaps the most surprising thing about Bros is its unwillingness to dial down or dilute the gay content in order to appease mainstream audiences.

This being a long passion project for Eichner, the film often feels like the inner monologue of a New York gay man who has seen and tried it all and has finally found himself at a point of no return.

Unabashedly explicit about gay sex, although never x-rated, Bros often feels like an act of gay rebellion in itself. Eichner and Stoller have given us one of the most honest, touching and funny romcoms of the year.

The film only slightly loses its way when it tries to include way too many strands in the quest for representation across the board, which, while important, feels rather superfluous here.

Elevated by its fearless storytelling and by Eichner’s disarming vulnerability, Bros may not be the best queer romcom to come out of Hollywood — that title surely belongs to Jamie Babbit’s But I’m A Cheerleader — but the fact that it is the first to be released by a major studio, says a lot about how far we have come and how much has been achieved over the last decade, as well as how far we need to go.