New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Billy Eichner and ‘Bros’ remake the rom-com
It doesn’t take a genius to deduce that anyone who rants in New York’s Madison Square Park about “Ratatouille” not getting enough respect or gets into a shouting match on 42nd Street about Denzel Washington’s stage credits might have a complicated relationship with the entertainment industry.
For five seasons of “Billy on the Street,” Billy Eichner was a hysterical roving commenter on Hollywood, proclaiming his tastes to any passerby he could corral with exaggerated disdain for those who dared to disagree with him and underlining fury with himself for caring so much.
“Show business, I was always so enamored and so infatuated with it. I was really intoxicated by it,” says Eichner, who grew up in Queens with middleclass parents who encouraged his passion. “I love great acting. I love the movies that I love. And, yes, ‘Billy on the Street’ was a way of poking fun at my own obsession with the entertainment industry.”
But as much as “Billy on the Street” seemed like Eichner as himself out in the real world of midtown Manhattan, his new movie, “Bros” (in theaters Sept. 30), is a far clearer picture of who Eichner is as a comedian, actor, screenwriter and gay man. And this fall movie season, it also happens to be a landmark comedy.
Eichner stars in and wrote the Universal Pictures release with director Nicholas Stoller. ( Judd Apatow produces.) The initial germ was to go further with a “Billy on the Street” sketch where Eichner acted as a Jets jersey-wearing sports bro with Jason Sudeikis. But as it developed, “Bros” grew in a different direction. In the classic format of an adult, R-rated rom-com, Eichner depicts an uncommonly honest and insightful portrait of life as a single gay man.
Like “Billy on the Street,” it’s frequently laugh-out-loud funny and packed with keen observations about Hollywood — a Hollywood where, until now, a film like “Bros” was essentially an impossibility. “Bros” is the first gay rom-com from a major studio, and the first studio film of any genre both written by and starring an openly gay man. The cast is almost entirely LGBTQ.
“The history of it is thrilling. It really is a monumental moment,” Eichner said in a recent interview. “I’ve been an openly gay actor and comedian my whole career, way before people knew me. I always wanted to be really successful, but I wanted it to be on my own terms, meaning as an openly gay person. That’s not something that’s easy to do. And that’s true of every single cast member of this movie.”