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I saw the movie with my husband (who apparently would do anything for love). It was funny and entertaining, and I was pleased to see how well this move upholds essentially conservative ideals of monogamy and sacrifice for the sake of your partnership within the context of very permissive do-who-you-want-so-long-as-everyone-consents sexual norms.
"BROS" has a bog-standard rom-com / sex-com story arc. A quirky, passionate, somewhat neurotic, career-driven
girlman is convinced that he is satisfied with his non-experience of love (though plenty of tinder hook-ups). He meets a hottie popular guy who is his exact opposite (conventionally gorgeous, popular, chill). They get together, in the opposites-attract sort of way. They get split up, in the opposites-repel sort of way. They get together again, because opposites-still-very-much-attract, and in the process each gives up something very important to them for the sake of making their now-monogamous relationship work.Woven into the story are funny scenes that depict the awkward tinder negotiations, awkward logistics of group sex (really, there is nothing porny about this movie), and drama-drama-drama that one could foresee any attempt at opening an LGBTQ(letters-letters-maybe-a-2?-letters)-specific museum.
You may be absolutely right about the marketing of the move. I wouldn't know, I have not seen anything other than a trailer before we went to see it.
Even if it's a reasonably good movie, it's got niche appeal. "Starring gay actors who are attractive to gay men" is not the same as "starring actors who are attractive to women playing gay characters, whether or not the actor is gay or non-binary or whatever", so that kind of movie is going to have a much smaller potential audience.
Put Timothée Chalamet (ugh) into a gay romcom, and you're going to have a lot more girls wanting to go see it, and so a lot more guys bringing their dates/being dragged along by their girlfriends going to see it.
Oh, I agree with your premise! Where we disagree is on whether the casting already accomplished this goal. Luke MacFarlane is a hottie and played the role of conflicted boyfriend especially well. Billy Eichner is no Timothée Chalamet, but rom-coms frequently have the
girlmain protagonist not be conventionally beautiful. Which was important to the plot.If I were in charge of marketing this movie... it would probably tank harder, because I don't know the first thing about marketing. But Monday-night arm-chair quarterbacking is as American as Apple Pie, so:
I would market it hard to young heterosexual women, with lots of hints to suggest that they can use this movie as a potential litmus test on whether their date is willing to signal openness to leftie liberal ideals regarding sexuality. Since the movie's ultimate morality lesson is about monogamous commitment, the date's response to that would also be useful.
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