Even before the first frame of Cha Cha Real Smooth appears on screen, writer/director/star Cooper Raiff immediately identifies the time and tone of this film. The use of Lupe Fiasco’s “The Show Goes On” doesn’t just bring about memories of a young Andrew (played by Raiff) dancing at bar mitzvahs in the early 2010s. For many current 10-12-year-olds, this might would signal a very specific period in life where they are dealing with the early onset of puberty, romantic feelings, discovering their personality, etc. In other words, every complicated and contradictory feeling of “coming of age.”
Though many things in life may change when you’re 22 or 32, Raiff precisely captures the same complicated web of feelings of figuring yourself out at these stages in life as well. As Domino (played phenomenally by Dakota Johnson) states, things can just get “tangled.” For Andrew, fresh out of college as a 22-year-old with a marketing career with no job prospects, he needs to untangle the feelings of a breakup, uncertain career prospects, and how he wants to spend his 20s. So when he manages to get a gig as a party starter at bar mitzvahs for his younger brother’s classmates, it all seems fun and simple. Though the answers aren’t definite, the path becomes more clear. Yet, when he meets Dominio and her daughter Lola (in a revelatory performance from Vanessa Burghardt), his tender, evolving relationship with them forces him to reckon with the answers.
At 24-years-old, Raiff now has two feature films under his belt (his first being the SXSW Winner Shithouse). Yet, Raiff has already demonstrated an extraordinary ability to capture every character in his films with a rare sense of honesty and empathy. Indeed, Raiff’s writing, direction, and performance show his true love for each of their strengths and flaws equally. This fact keeps the film from perhaps succumbing to the saccharine mood that makes many crowd-pleasing Sundance films too “cringe” to watch. At many points, he makes heinous lies in the face of uncomfortable situations that play as jokes. But Andrew’s soul almost immediately guilt-trips him, giving the audience a true glimpse at the heart of this story.
For instance, as the audience learn more about Andrew’s family, we also learn about how his disdain for his stepdad, Greg (Brad Garrett). Though his mother (Leslie Mann) insists he is good for her, Andrew fails to recognize this facet of this relationship with blunt jokes directly aimed at Greg. But Raiff, through his own performance, begins to untangle his uncomfortable feelings; in doing so, he realizes just how tangled everyone around him is as well. Even if we feel and deeply want different things, at certain points in our life, we have to choose amongst all our possible wants the thing that we absolutely need. Though it may come with heartbreak, many soon-to-be college graduates, or indeed anybody, might find the joy in these decisions as Andrew does.
5/5 STARS
Cha Cha Real Smooth will be released by AppleTV+ on June 17, 2022.