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The ‘Bros’ Trailer Is Already the Best Gay Rom-Com Ever

Did you know that gay people have sex?

Bros is already the best rom-com of the year, and it doesn’t even come out until September. Normally, we wouldn’t be so hasty in bestowing such a lofty title. But the trailer for the Billy Eichner-led comedy, which dropped on Wednesday, has all the makings of an instant classic.

Bros will make history as the first R-rated gay rom-com from a major studio—in this case, Universal. The film boasts an all-LGBTQ+ principal cast composed of Luke Macfarlane, Bowen Yang, and Harvey Fierstein, to name a few.

Eichner stars as Bobby Lieber, a celebrity podcast host that has been tasked by studio execs with writing a romcom about a gay couple. (The hope is that it’s one “a straight guy might even like and watch with his girlfriend,” Bobby’s told.) The trailer shows the meeting in question, in which a bemused Eichner imagines what that type of movie might look like. “Am I gonna be in the middle of some high-speed chase then all of a sudden fall in love with Ice Cube?” he asks rhetorically. “Am I gonna get butt-fucked by Jason Momoa while we’re both worrying about a volcano?”

The film producer in the trailer wants an unrealistic movie that shows that gay relationships are the same as straight relationships. “I said, ‘Love is love is love? No it’s not! That is bullshit,” Eichner rants. “Our friendships are different, our sex lives are different, our relationships are different.” It’s pretty clear that Eichner himself had these same conversations in real-life meetings.

Each list item is punctuated with a hilarious clip proving his point—Bowen Yang informing Eichner and Macfarlane that they’re too old to go in the pool at a party, Eichner powering up a ring light to take a flattering ass pic, the camera zooming out to reveal that what looks like a tender kiss between the two romantic leads is actually a foursome.

Between the ample moments of homoerotic antics and raunchy, sardonic humor, however, there are also traces of a familiar romantic arc between Eichner and Macfarlane. Macfarlane plays Aaron, like Bobby a busy, career-oriented gay man who does not seem to have the time or optimism required of finding love. Their paths continually cross, and while they may fight their feelings at first, it’s safe to assume these two are ending up together by the time the credits roll. The trailer is also set to Queen’s “Somebody to Love,” which is about as romcom-y as it gets.

Bros was co-written by Eichner and Nicholas Stoller, the writer-director behind comedies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Neighbors, and Zoolander 2. Stoller is also directing, with Judd Apatow producing. We’re already counting down the days until Bros hits theaters on September 30.

Jordan Julian

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