Much has been written declaring Brüno a new high for vulgarity. Its funniest scenes – ones that will leave your mouth agape and your eyes glassy – involve a creatively sexual use of an exercise bike, Brüno’s beyond passionate reunion with Milli Vanilli’s late Rob Pilatus with the help of a psychic, and a foray into a swinger’s party that often threatens to half-fill the screen with censored bits of blurriness.
And I can understand where the critics are coming from and why they are going there. I too feel the need to warn my readers. My own sensibilities are far from sensitive and yet even I was often watching this tale of a flaming gay male Euro-model – portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen who I am now convinced is a comic genius – with blinking disbelief. Was I really seeing what I was seeing?
Consider those first two paragraphs as your warning. If gay sex and over-the-top caricatures of homophobia at its ugliest aren’t, shall I say, your cup of tea, then you may want to skip this one. I know one dad who walked out in disgust. His teenage boys stuck around though and had a blast.
But I’ve now spilled enough of ink of my own on that topic. I’d rather describe how this latest collaboration between Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles (they previously created Borat) is a step forward. While their previous effort was all over the place, anything for a laugh, this is focused and while I never felt much for Borat, I found Brüno very appealing and his story quite moving.
After losing his modeling career in Germany thanks to an ill-advised fashion statement – making clothing entirely out of Velcro is not a good idea – Brüno heads to Los Angeles to find himself and become a super-famous worldwide celebrity. And down the yellow brick road he goes.
Article comments