Comedian and Curb Your Enthusiasm costar Jeff Garlin wrote, directed, and stars in this tale a chubby Chicagoan in search of love. This feels a lot like the debut it is, and not just because of the boom mike visible in a couple of scenes; it seemed to me like Garlin probably imagined his life if he’d stayed in his hometown and was still trying to make it as an actor, living with his mom, and appearing with the famed Second City troupe. He’s not doing so well, though; he can’t even get an audition for a remake of Marty, the Oscar-winning tale of a chubby, lonely guy of which this is a semi-comic update.
It’s one of those films you see more often about New York, where the big city seems like a small town and the hero is into old movies or, in this case, old records. Here, lonely James meets a fellow used-record lover (Bonnie Hunt) reaching for the very same obscure jazz LP, and—wow!—when he goes to Career Day at his local school, there she is, the teacher. Cheese has some charming moments, like when an unlikely admirer (Sarah Silverman) asks him to help her buy underwear (just what I was thinking! he deadpans). But it has too many others that seem contrived, like when the underwear store’s changing room turns out to have a diaphanous curtain. Garlin’s a likable, funny guy, but this effort seems slight.
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