I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (2006)

It’s Sunday, you know what that means…time for the next installment in our A-To-Z challenge. This week for the letter “I” we look at a movie that was written and directed by the lead actor, Jeff Garlin. Let’s dive into I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (2006).

Title: I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With

Director: Jeff Garlin

Released: April 28, 2006

Runtime: 1 hour 20 minutes

Available to stream on: Kanopy and Hoopla

IMDb synopsis: About a man who has trouble with his job, trouble with women, and uses food to deal with it all.

James (Jeff Garlin) is having a rough go of things. He’s 39, living at home with his mother, and still hoping for his big break with as a Second City performer. To add insult to injury, James was recently dumped. Not just by his girlfriend, but his agent was her brother. While speaking at career day, James has an existential meltdown when speaking to the children. Single, no real prospects, living at home with his mother, James turns to food to cope and deal.

However, things begin to look up for James when he encounters Beth (Sarah Silverman) at the local ice cream shop. Beth and James begin spending time together which proves to work wonders for James. But will a renewed sense of confidence be enough? Can James pull it all together and find happiness? At the very least, will he find someone to eat cheese with?

So, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (2006) is an interesting watch. On one hand, it’s a lighthearted feel-good story. The script itself is incredibly light as well. There isn’t much to it, not a lot to read into or pontificate on once the credits roll. Although, that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes a movie can just be straightforward and not require a lot of thought on your part.

On the other hand, the entire movie, including the score, feels like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. If you had an episode without Larry that was set in Chicago and focused on Jeff, you’d have this movie.

But that’s not to say that there isn’t anything to enjoy here. Despite the PG rating, there is plenty of humor to be found. Sarah Silverman still manages to work in her style of comedy as Beth, and it doesn’t feel horribly out of place. I said earlier that everything feels like an episode of Curb and well, if you like that style of humor than you’ll enjoy the humor here. It’s the same conversational off-beat comedy just in a PG setting rather than TV-MA.

Every now and then you find a movie that you enjoy well enough when watching it, but after a few days go by nothing really has “stuck” with you from the movie. Well, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (2006) is exactly that type of movie. I can find worse ways to spend eighty minutes. If you’re looking for a feel-good story that gets in and gets out without a lot of fluff, this is for you.

Well, what do you think? If you’ve seen I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (2006) tell me about your thoughts on it in the comments below or by reaching out on social media!

So, what’s next? Well, I’ve got some travel coming up, so I’ll take your suggestions for the letter “J” and “K” through this coming Wednesday morning. We’ll stay with Sunday releases; I just need to get a jump on the letter “K” to keep with the Sunday release schedule. Don’t wait, get those suggestions in now. Wednesday evening I’ll announce the movie for the letter “J”.