Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
66
Bandslam
45
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
29
Collector, The
23
Couples Retreat
80
District 9
61
Extract
39
Fame
xx
Fantastic Mr. Fox
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
60
Funny People
32
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
27
Gamer
41
G-Force
39
Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, The
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
55
I Can Do Bad All By Myself
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
33
Love Happens
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
51
My Sister's Keeper
42
Orphan
28
Pandorum
63
Perfect Getaway, A
86
Ponyo![]()
35
Post Grad
48
Proposal, The
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
24
Sorority Row
83
Star Trek![]()
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
55
Taking Woodstock
47
Time Traveler's Wife
96
Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3D![]()
35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
Ugly Truth, The
88
Up![]()
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum![]()
56
Adam
72
Adela
39
Adventures of Power
78
Afghan Star
61
After the Storm
66
Afterschool
xx
All the Best
58
American Casino
72
Amreeka
48
Antichrist
73
Araya
62
Art & Copy
55
As Seen Through These Eyes
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The![]()
13
Beautiful Life, A
70
Beeswax
35
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71
Big Fan
66
Black Dynamite
51
Blind Date
xx
Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
76
Bliss
35
Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57
Boys Are Back, The
45
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star![]()
70
Bronson
45
Burning Plain, The
xx
Carriers
55
Casi Divas
57
Chelsea on the Rocks
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
59
Collapse
44
Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82
Cove, The![]()
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The![]()
67
Departures
xx
Dil Bole Hadippa
71
Disgrace
xx
Do Knot Disturb
70
Earth Days
24
Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85
Education, An![]()
55
Endgame
xx
Eulogy for a Vampire
xx
Everyone Else
xx
Fatal Promises
56
Fifty Dead Men Walking
62
Five Minutes of Heaven
74
Flame & Citron
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
28
Free Style
xx
From Mexico with Love
50
Fuel
25
Gentlemen Broncos
50
Give Me Your Hand
58
Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo![]()
52
Grace
66
Harmony and Me
81
Headless Woman, The![]()
xx
Heretics, The
63
Horse Boy, The
73
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
74
Humpday
94
Hurt Locker, The![]()
29
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16
If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75
In Search of Beethoven
83
In the Loop![]()
61
Intimate Enemies
42
Irene in Time
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
19
Labor Day
xx
Laila's Birthday
41
Little Ashes
41
Little Traitor, The
66
Liverpool
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
83
Maid, The![]()
xx
Ministers, The
59
More Than a Game
67
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
xx
Mystery Team
48
New York, I Love You
73
Night and Day
66
No Impact Man
47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34
Other Man, The
xx
Painter Sam Francis, The
54
Paper Heart
xx
Paradise
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
44
Peter and Vandy
35
Play the Game
77
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx
Pretty Ugly People
65
Providence Effect, The
76
Rembrandt's J'accuse
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
40
Shrink
61
Skin
77
Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx
Skiptracers
46
Splinterheads
39
St. Trinian's
89
Still Walking![]()
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
55
Storm
65
Tetro
70
That Evening Sun
72
Thirst
xx
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61
Trucker
xx
Turning Green
83
U2 3D![]()
66
Unmade Beds
66
Unmistaken Child
70
Visual Acoustics
55
Walt & El Grupo
67
Way We Get By, The
69
We Live in Public
64
Wedding Song, The
64
Where is Where?
xx
White on Rice
74
Woman in Berlin, A
69
World's Greatest Dad
70
Yes Men Fix the World
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx
You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 18 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 5 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Romance
Written by: Jeff Garlin
Directed by: Jeff Garlin
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 5, 2007
DVD: April 15, 2008
Running Time: 80 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING:
Starring Jeff Garlin, Sarah Silverman, Elle Fanning, Dan Castellaneta, Gina Gershon, Bonnie Hunt, Richard Kind, and Amy Sedaris
James is a frustrated and underappreciated Chicago actor who lives with his mother and has only really wanted three things in life: someone to love him, a great part, and to lose weight. Unfortunately, he is 0 for 3. His girlfriend dumps him, he loses the title roles in a remake of Paddy Chayefsky’s Marty to teen idol Aaron Carter, and he sneaks out of an Overeaters Anonymous meeting only to wind up at an ice cream parlor. There, he meets Beth, who quickly wins his heart but will this cause James more problems than it solves? Or has he finally found someone to eat cheese with? (IFC Films)
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling
A wry movie that, packed with his well-known friends and scored intermittently to bouncy accordion music, plays like a softer episode of "Curb."
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Garlin's movie is beautiful in its own way. It also suggests that David's show would still be brilliant without the aggravation. I'm not saying that David should renounce misanthropy. But maybe he could curb less of Garlin's apparent enthusiasm for people.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Sid Smith
If you’re a Chicagoan, if you have just a smidgen of interest in the city’s arts scene and if you’ve been around a while, there’s no way to be objective about I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It is a minor movie, but a big-time minor movie...If there is such a thing as a must-see three-star movie, here it is.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Ella Taylor
May be one of the wisest studies of urban loneliness since Paddy Chayefsky's "Marty."
Read Full Review >The New York Times Matt Zoller Seitz
Laid back and affectionate, “Cheese” is the movie version of a dear friend you could spend all day with.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
Feels more like a series of skits than a movie, though it does tie up several plot threads in a lyrical last scene worthy of vintage Woody Allen.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Unassuming and sweet-natured, and Garlin earns a lot of goodwill with his off-the-cuff wisecracks.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
The film is visually bland and hits a few comic dead ends, but there's an element of pathos that allows us to believe in the plight of the fictional James.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Marta Barber
Cheese is written with plenty of sophisticated wit, but it is not quite convincing as a movie.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
None of it really adds up to much but it's smart, low-key fun -- terrible title and dangling preposition notwithstanding.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Garlin, like Oscar winner Ernest Borgnine in "Marty," is good company, even when his out-of-control eating and self-loathing threaten to overwhelm him.
Read Full Review >Washington Post John Maynard
The entire film carries a whiff of "vanity project," with several of Garlin's comedic buddies reporting for duty.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Robert Abele
James and Beth have fun in a grocery store pretending to be different characters meeting in the aisles. As they learn, sometimes the moment works, sometimes it doesn't. The same can be said for this unfailingly modest film.
Read Full Review >Variety Ronnie Scheib
Never completely takes off, yet somewhat overestimates the surrounding zaniness. Still, any opportunity to witness the improvisatory skills of Sarah Silverman, Bonnie Hunt and Amy Sedaris should not be missed.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The story ultimately lands in incoherence; but the cameos and local details, and even some of the gags, keep it perky.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson
Garlin's directing has little pacing, and many of the borderline gags could have been salvaged with some sharper editing. And there's a shocking amount of jokes and situations that just don't work.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Chad S. gave it a7:
Before Beth(Sarah Silverman) agrees to sleep with James (Jeff Garlin), she insists that the Second City comedian throw her out of his apartment. Beth is adamant. And then a fleeting thought: this is just like Dorothy Vallens(Isabella Rosselini) in "Blue Velvet", when she orders Jeffrey Beaumont(Kyle McLachlan) to hit her. Echoes of Woody Allen is easy to detect in "I Want Somebody to Eat Cheese With", in particular, the final scene between Garlin and Silverman, which is a correction of sorts to the face-to-face meeting that never happened between Woody Allen and Mariel Hemmingway in "Manhattan", since this time, the right heart is broken. Or maybe, nebbish guys are just hotter than fat guys. But that's beside the point. "I Want Somebody to Eat Cheese With" suggests what a romantic-comedy directed by David Lynch might look like. Instead of meet cute, Jeff and Beth meet strange, in an ice cream parlour, which plays like a scene straight out of "Twin Peaks"(the series, not "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me"). And then there's the surreal casting behind "Marty", the remake of the Ernest Borgnine film that James wanted to star in. In real life, there's only one "Marty", and that's filmmaker Martin Scorsese. James is "The King of Comedy". When he sleeps with Beth, the line that Robert DeNiro(as Rupert Pupkin) delivers in the story's denouement is sort of befitting here, which went like this: "But I figure it this way: better to be king for a night, than schmuck for a lifetime." James might not be "The King of Comedy", but he certainly qualifies to be the "King of Pain". The film's tone is strange for a comedy. I think it's intentional.
Xavier P. gave it a6:
Just alright movie. Something's missing. Could have been great.
Jeff J. gave it an8:
Dude, you forgot another funny person in the film: the voice of Homer Simpson. He's also in this film. Sweet.
Frank T. gave it an8:
Garlin! My man maine! This certainly seems like a funny movie to me. A heavy set comedian and his pizza, with Sarah Silverman, Gina Gershon, and Al from Home Improvement.
