Post by Dracula on Oct 3, 2022 21:30:55 GMT -5
Bros(10/1/2022)
There’s been a lot of talk about the release of Bros being a landmark of sorts for LGBT representation as the first studio comedy to receive a wide release. Personally I was just happy to see a comedy, any comedy really, getting a wide release. The genre has seemed absolutely dead for several years now for seemingly no good reason. In this marked a return for the Judd Apatow produced comedy style that has really slowed to a trickle and was never really replaced by something else. This time he’s working with the comedian Billy Eichner, who is probably best known for his “Billy on the street” sketches where he harangues people on the streets of New York. He’s a lot more grounded here than he is when doing those bits and is instead playing a slightly embittered historian of LGBT history in his forties who has resigned himself to engage in meaningless hookups rather than begin a real relationship with someone. That is until a guy played by Luke Macfarlane comes into his life who’s a bit more down to earth but also superficial and the two seem to have some chemistry.
I will say that if there’s a big problem with the film it’s probably the Macfarlane character. He’s an actor I was not familiar with at all prior to this film (he apparently makes Hallmark movies) and he’s clearly not really a comedian. Back at the height of Apatow’s powers he was often criticized for pairing schluby men played by comedians with women who are too hot for them and don’t really add to the comedy, and Macfarlane would seem to be the male equivalent to something like that. Additionally, while the film tries to distance itself from romantic comedy tropes (to the point of having a speech at the beginning about how a gay romantic comedy would be fundamentally different from a straight one) the film does still ultimately dive into some of the clichés like the “meet cute,” the third act misunderstanding, and the grand gesture at the end. They find decent twists on those first two tropes but the grand gesture one is absolutely cringe-worthy. But beyond that I think there’s a lot to like here. The scenes at the Eichner character’s workplace are pretty stinging satire of the infighting that you can expect to find in most progressive spaces and the relationship sequences do seem to highlight some real differences from how these stories would play out for gay men in a way they don’t for straight couples. And in typical Apatow fashion the ribaldry does at certain points settle down for things to “get real” and emotions are discussed, and these moments do seem more direct and probing than they were in a lot of those earlier films.
So while I don’t necessarily think Bros is the greatest triumph one is likely to find on the cinema screen this year, it is a solid comedy well worth your time and it also has a certain quality that makes you want to root for it. Built into the movie is a certain self-awareness of its own potential importance, it’s plainly trying to break down the doors of Hollywood and shatter glass ceilings and you can tell from Eichner’s interviews that he was hoping for this to be a sort of Bridesmaids or Crazy Rich Asians for LGBT audiences, but as I write this on the Monday after the film opened we know that that was not to be. The film frankly flopped in its opening weekend, coming in number four at the box office, and a lot of ways that does kind of take the winds out of the movie’s sails. Almost like seeing a diver confidently climb onto a diving board only to then belly flop, at least in terms of the film’s attempt to infiltrate the wider popular culture. Why did this happen? Well, obviously there are a lot of considerations about how the film was marketed and rolled out, but I think more fundamentally it might have been rather mistimed. Firstly, it’s trying to be an Apatow-esque comedy a good half dozen years after that brand of comedy (and comedies in general for that matter) kind of went out of style. But perhaps more profoundly a lot of elements of the film (or at least the version of the film seen in the trailers) seem to be trying to ride a certain post-Obergefell wave of triumphalism that maybe seems out of place and naive in a post-Dobbs world where a lot of that success could easily be rolled back and new attacks on the LGBT community are being launched on a daily basis by the Ron DeSantises and Greg Abbotts of the world. Overall I do think the actual movie is a bit more thoughtful than that, but it does kind of linger over the movie and maybe make it feel like a more hollow victory than it might have had it come out a bit earlier.
***1/2 out of Five
There’s been a lot of talk about the release of Bros being a landmark of sorts for LGBT representation as the first studio comedy to receive a wide release. Personally I was just happy to see a comedy, any comedy really, getting a wide release. The genre has seemed absolutely dead for several years now for seemingly no good reason. In this marked a return for the Judd Apatow produced comedy style that has really slowed to a trickle and was never really replaced by something else. This time he’s working with the comedian Billy Eichner, who is probably best known for his “Billy on the street” sketches where he harangues people on the streets of New York. He’s a lot more grounded here than he is when doing those bits and is instead playing a slightly embittered historian of LGBT history in his forties who has resigned himself to engage in meaningless hookups rather than begin a real relationship with someone. That is until a guy played by Luke Macfarlane comes into his life who’s a bit more down to earth but also superficial and the two seem to have some chemistry.
I will say that if there’s a big problem with the film it’s probably the Macfarlane character. He’s an actor I was not familiar with at all prior to this film (he apparently makes Hallmark movies) and he’s clearly not really a comedian. Back at the height of Apatow’s powers he was often criticized for pairing schluby men played by comedians with women who are too hot for them and don’t really add to the comedy, and Macfarlane would seem to be the male equivalent to something like that. Additionally, while the film tries to distance itself from romantic comedy tropes (to the point of having a speech at the beginning about how a gay romantic comedy would be fundamentally different from a straight one) the film does still ultimately dive into some of the clichés like the “meet cute,” the third act misunderstanding, and the grand gesture at the end. They find decent twists on those first two tropes but the grand gesture one is absolutely cringe-worthy. But beyond that I think there’s a lot to like here. The scenes at the Eichner character’s workplace are pretty stinging satire of the infighting that you can expect to find in most progressive spaces and the relationship sequences do seem to highlight some real differences from how these stories would play out for gay men in a way they don’t for straight couples. And in typical Apatow fashion the ribaldry does at certain points settle down for things to “get real” and emotions are discussed, and these moments do seem more direct and probing than they were in a lot of those earlier films.
So while I don’t necessarily think Bros is the greatest triumph one is likely to find on the cinema screen this year, it is a solid comedy well worth your time and it also has a certain quality that makes you want to root for it. Built into the movie is a certain self-awareness of its own potential importance, it’s plainly trying to break down the doors of Hollywood and shatter glass ceilings and you can tell from Eichner’s interviews that he was hoping for this to be a sort of Bridesmaids or Crazy Rich Asians for LGBT audiences, but as I write this on the Monday after the film opened we know that that was not to be. The film frankly flopped in its opening weekend, coming in number four at the box office, and a lot of ways that does kind of take the winds out of the movie’s sails. Almost like seeing a diver confidently climb onto a diving board only to then belly flop, at least in terms of the film’s attempt to infiltrate the wider popular culture. Why did this happen? Well, obviously there are a lot of considerations about how the film was marketed and rolled out, but I think more fundamentally it might have been rather mistimed. Firstly, it’s trying to be an Apatow-esque comedy a good half dozen years after that brand of comedy (and comedies in general for that matter) kind of went out of style. But perhaps more profoundly a lot of elements of the film (or at least the version of the film seen in the trailers) seem to be trying to ride a certain post-Obergefell wave of triumphalism that maybe seems out of place and naive in a post-Dobbs world where a lot of that success could easily be rolled back and new attacks on the LGBT community are being launched on a daily basis by the Ron DeSantises and Greg Abbotts of the world. Overall I do think the actual movie is a bit more thoughtful than that, but it does kind of linger over the movie and maybe make it feel like a more hollow victory than it might have had it come out a bit earlier.
***1/2 out of Five
