'CHEESE' NEEDS MORE MEAT ON ITS BONES.

Byline: EVAN HENERSON

>LA.COM 

Thanks to Jeff Garlin's romantic comedy "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With," the world now knows the meaning of the terms "Chubby Chaser" and "Hoagie Shack."

Given the film's subject matter -- overweight actor looks for love -- the first term is self-explanatory: a person who pursues fat people. (The meaning of "Hoagie Shack," on the other hand, is not printable in this newspaper.)

These two bits of dictionary wisdom and a handful of celebrity cameos are the bulk of what "Eat Cheese" has to recommend itself. Unless, that is, you cannot get enough of Jeff Garlin.

Garlin, the former Second City actor who plays Larry David's manager on "Curb Your Enthusiasm," has spun his solo show into a movie that's, alas, pretty light on laughs. It's a generous comedian, I guess, who gives all the best comic gags to his co-stars. Where that leaves Garlin -- the film's writer, director and star -- is largely in reactive mode. His character, James Aaron, is not simply a loser, but a boring loser.

James is a tubby, out-of-work comedian who lives with his mother and is eternally getting dumped by agents or women who were never dating him in the first place. At one point, he helps a friend out by donning an oversize pirate head and handing out hot dog samples. His Holy Grail role -- the lead in a remake of "Marty" -- eventually falls to Aaron Carter.

The only person willing to take on this lovelorn lug is a hugely quirky ice cream counter worker named Beth (Sarah Silverman) who takes him lingerie shopping but is not ultimately a Chubby Chaser.

Shooting in his native Chicago, Garlin pilots James around the city: in and out of offices, on and off stages, through convenience stores (the clerk cuts him off when he buys too much junk food) and to his car parked strategically near Wrigley Field.

"Eat Cheese's" very, er, thin 80 minutes includes a rousing game of "spot the minor celebrity": there's Richard Kind! Look, it's Amy Sedaris. And wasn't that Paul Mazursky? Many of them, as previously noted, have more to do than Garlin, who is in every scene.

At one point, James is tapped to speak at his friend's daughter's career day, where he confesses to the bored second graders (yuk, yuk) that "what I really need is to get laid." The teacher (Bonnie Hunt) somehow finds this endearing.

Garlin, who could be George Wendt's kid brother, is by most accounts a skilled comic raconteur. In "Eat Cheese," he leaves the audience wedged uncomfortably between hoping the man will grow a spine and wanting him to locate a cheese eater and just go away.

Fairly humorous, however, is Carter's rendition of Marty with Gina Gershon as his mother. Call it the icing on a none-too-sweet cake.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

[e-mail]

I WANT SOMEONE TO EAT CHEESE WITH - Two stars

>Not rated: language.

>Starring: Jeff Garlin, Sarah Silverman, Bonnie Hunt, Mina Kolb.

>Director: Jeff Garlin.

>Running time: 1 hr. 20 min.

>Playing: . Laemmle Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Laemmle Monica 4, Santa Monica.

>In a nutshell: It probably should have stayed a solo show.

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Jeff Garlin, with Sarah Silverman, stars as a comedic actor looking for love in "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With."