‘Bros’ transcends genre with laughs, heart

I pulled “When Harry Met Sally” out of a $5 movie bin at Wal-Mart when I was a sophomore in college, somewhere around 2007. It was a movie I knew was a “higher brow” chick flick, so I figured I could get away with watching it and still cling on to the fragile facade of heterosexuality I feigned while marching through the check-out aisle. I watched it that night, and then many times after. I kept watching it after I (finally) came out. 

It, and the overflowing canon of romantic comedies, have become a kind of unconscious litmus test for my potential dates. Can he engage in witty banter? Will the meet cute play well in my bio? 

And no matter how evolved my thinking on the parameters of relationships may become, the fact is I continue to look for a nice, simple, funny little love story. 

But until I sat down in a packed house Friday night to watch “Bros,” I don’t think I really knew that kind of love story could be my story. 

Had it been released on streaming, “Bros” probably wouldn’t have affected me as much as it did. The theatrical experience, the kind of collective viewing movies truly deserve, made this, the first gay, romantic comedy released by a major studio, a transcendent experience for me. 

Billy Eichner plays Bobby, a well-known gay history authoritarian in New York City who hosts a popular podcast and has just been tapped to lead the first major LGBTQ+ museum. In his personal life, Bobby is obviously dissatisfied with a seemingly endless string of meaningless hookups while simultaneously pretending he is not jealous of any of the fabulous relational successes of his friends.  

Out one night, he meets the hunky and, you-guessed-it, “bro-y” Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), who’s a fan of his podcast. Aaron is not the type of guy Bobby thinks would be into him, but he keeps popping up, and then disappearing the moment they seem to connect. Aaron enjoys sexual openness but doesn’t want any of the commitment. At least that’s what he says. And hey, Bobby says that, too. But Aaron’s hot/cold nature is challenged by Bobby, and Bobby’s jaded idea of love, too, is challenged in the process. 

And so goes our romantic comedy arc. That arc is not unlike any other you’ve seen, besides being very, very queer. The cast is chock-full of recognizable-out faces, including Bowen Yang, Harvey Fierstein and Ts Madison. Straight characters are even played by out actors, including Jai Rodriguez (of the original “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”) as Aaron’s brother. There are also some major cameos from allies, including an extended, absolutely uproarious appearance from Debra Messing playing her Emmy-winning self (“I beat Sarah Jessica Parker!” she reminds us). 

There are references to gay life that will be a deeper dive primer for straight audiences, who will learn the ins and outs of words like Grindr, top and poppers. Just to be clear: this is an R-rated romantic comedy. A smattering of great one-off puns send up the commercialization of queer culture, with a slew of fictional Hallmark-style movies listed like “A Holly Poly Christmas” (meaning polyamorous) and “Home Alone with Sarah Paulson.” 

But its story, its heart, is grounded in Nora Ephron and Preston Sturges. It is a movie that works not because it’s about two dudes. It’s a movie that works because it’s two dudes who are insecure, self-conscious, struggling with commitment issues, scarred with generational trauma, self-effacing and uncertain … just like everybody else. Like “Schitt’s Creek” did not so long ago on television, “Bros” has made love between two guys accessible for the masses, anchored my charming yin-yang lead performances from Eichner and Macfarlane, whose chemistry stacks up to Hepburn and Tracy, Ryan and Hanks, and Day and Hudson. 

Early in the film, Bobby references a very specific scene that happens near the end of “When Harry Met Sally.” Sitting in the theater, I thought, “Man, I’d love to see that iconic moment with these characters.” 

It’s subtle, but “Bros” gives us a mirror of that exact scene … a payoff for all of us audience members who knew the reference Bobby was making. It’s a payoff, too, for everyone out there who’s been waiting years to see that kind of moment in something other than a straight, cisgender context. 

I am not known for tears in general as a human, but it was at this point in the film that water started to form in my eyes. For the last 10 or 20 minutes of the movie, quite a lot of these droplets started falling down my face. Truth be told, I have a few forming as I write this now. 

Because sitting in that movie theater on Friday night, I realized that for all the major strides my community has made that I’ve had a front row seat for … the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” marriage equality and the like, I still never sit down for a queer-themed, theatrical film expecting anything other than straight guys performing another gay tragedy for awards season. As much as I adore “Call Me By Your Name” and “Brokeback Mountain,” the traumatic homosexual love story with a downer ending feels, at this point, like a parallel for the meandering, often frustrating, world of gay dating. It’s like Hollywood creating a mouse-wheel prophecy we’ve been unable to totally escape. When we get a counter in the form of a TV show or independent film, it doesn’t feel real, no matter how good or how earnest the project may be. It feels like something that was catered for us … a false exercise in wish fulfillment that has little to no interest to the mainstream. 

But at the movies it’s different. Sitting with a row of my friends surrounded by strangers in a darkened room with a giant, silver screen, as Nicole Kidman reminds every attendee of AMC, “stories feel perfect and powerful.” 

And for the first time ever in my life, I got a happy, funny, cute, romantic comedy released by a major studio with two gay dudes (played by two actual gay dudes). I walked out of that theater not thinking “well that could happen if I was straight” or “man, being gay is so tragic.” I walked out of that theater thinking, “that can happen to me.” 

Now you’ll excuse me while I go pen the first draft of “When Harry Met Harry.”