I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With
Jeff Garlin (aka Jeff Green) has left his managerial role on Curb Your Enthusiasm to write, produce, direct and star in his own IFC/Weinstein Company movie, I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With. Playing the part of James Aaron, a 40ish
down-and-outer, looking for love in all the wrong places, Garlin goes through one rejecting door after another, depressing us, humoring us, always attempting to inform us of the plight of the obese, sad-looking, not-too-bright momma's boys' problems in finding a woman – any woman – to call his own.
The show is mounted as a series of vignettes in which such people as Sarah Silverman, Bonnie Hunt, Paul Mazursky, Joey Slotnick and Wallace Langham get their two minutes to interact with our hero, offering advice, hope, light and , invariably, rejection. From them you will learn such terms as "hoagie shack", a newer meaning for getting laid, "the magic of self" and what it means to be a "chubby chaser": all of which you could live the rest of your life comfortably, without knowing.
That Garlin has been influenced greatly by the movie Marty is obvious. His picture doesn't radiate any of the movement, magic or melody of the original. You will have a laugh or two – more at him than with him. Silverman's charming moments come all too seldom; the Overeater's Anonymous scene was too brief; the absence of people in the market or soda fountain scenes appeared to be a ploy to save money on extras; most elementary classrooms have more than twelve children, especially in Chicago. The one scene of his bringing flowers to his paramour was quite touching as she takes them while closing the door in Garlin's face. And the final denouement is not really believable for a myriad of reasons.
I like Jeff Garlin enormously. I like his gestures, mannerisms, voice and expressiveness. Here, in I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With, he may have bitten off more than he could adequately chew. The script is weak; the editing is choppy; the action flows intermittently; the characters lack plausibility and create little, if any, sympathy from the audience. With such a nebbish, is it any wonder no one wants to eat cheese, or anything else, with him? Better you should sit alone and cut the cheese, all by yourself!.
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