Bromantic Comedy

"I love you, Tycho Brohe."

—Sydney, from I Love You Man during his new best friend's wedding.^[1]

At the intersection of the Buddy Picture and the Romantic Comedy lies the bromantic comedy. In this case, however, both leads will be male and the relationship pursued will be strictly platonic, possibly diving headlong into "no homo" territory. Also unlike its romantic counterpart, a true Brom-Com is decidedly not a Chick Flick.

Distinguishing between this trope and the buddy picture is a little more complicated, but a preliminary way to mark the difference is that a pure bromantic comedy would not center around, for example, unlikely allies coming together to overcome adversity. Rather, the plot of a Bro-Com is specifically driven by the relationship between the characters themselves, much like a regular Rom Com. Naturally, if things work out well, the story culminates in a (more or less) straightforward bromance.

Examples of Bromantic Comedy include:

• Evasive Inquiry Agency
• Hot Fuzz fits the bill rather well.
• I Love You, Man, which embraces and adapts countless Rom Com tropes.
• Love Actually is a Rom Com that has multiple couples, one of them is a bromantic couple.

1. ↑ to a woman