Cha Cha Real Smooth is the perfect encapsulation of the disillusionment of post-graduate life. That time when you are suddenly thrust into the adult world and all you want to do is be taken seriously and show you have it all figured out but nothing is further from the truth. Writer/director/star Cooper Raiff is able to capture this feeling and bottle it into a wonderful film that wears its heart on its sleeve.
Raiff’s film first premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award. Apple TV+ then swooped in to purchase the film for a cool $15 million. To note Apple TV’s last Sundance purchase CODA went on to win Best Picture at this year’s Oscars. So you never know…
While I don’t think it’s quite Best Picture worthy Cha Cha is still a strong film. Raiff stars as Andrew a recent college grad who moves back to his family home in New Jersey. He has to adjust to life with his mother (Leslie Mann) her new husband Greg (Brad Garrett) and his little brother David (Evan Assante) while navigating post-college life. Andrew suffers from the existential dread of working a job (the Meat Stick mall location) he is overqualified for while figuring out what he really wants to do.
Through a series of much too easy coincidences, Andrew starts working as a bat and bar mitzvah party starter. This is where he meets the mysterious Domino (Dakota Johnson), a young mother to an autistic teen, Lola (newcomer Vanessa Burghardt.) What follows is an unlikely friendship that feels part The Graduate and part (500) Days of Summer.
Raiff has a strong vision for this film, and he plays the part of Andrew because I don’t think anyone else could. The character feels so wrapped in his own head that I think only Raiff could understand the part. This is not a dig at his acting (which is great) but just an observation of the writer/director/star dynamic of this film. His directing is very naturalistic and character-driven, letting multiple points of view happen from within the same scene but always keeping the film centered on Andrew. We mostly don’t know what other characters are thinking or feeling beyond what Andrew can observe. Except for one out-of-place scene early on.
This is especially true with Johnson’s Domino. Raiff does a good job of making her wants clear but keeping her intentions and motivations hidden. Johnson plays the character with a sultry appeal, letting her actions speak louder than her words. She falls a little bit into the “male savior” complex but Raiff does a nice job dialing it back. The character is grounded by her daughter, Lola, and the relationship she and Andrew have. Lola is never played as the token autistic character but as a character who happens to be autistic. Which makes for a nice change of pace.
The struggle isn’t that Domino is the young mother of an autistic teen but that she is a young mother. Someone who felt like she missed out on what her 20s were all about. Finding yourself and growing into adulthood is the major theme running through Cha Cha. With each character struggling with a new stage of growth in life. And while some of the characters are a little underdeveloped, Leslie Mann’s character is just credited as Andrew’s Mom and Brad Garret’s Greg is most just a punching bag for jokes, the heart is there.
Where the film does suffer slightly is in its insistence on using coincidences to drive the story forward. Characters often run into each other at crowded bars or parties and there seems to be a new bat or bar mitzvah every night. There is no establishing of the demographics or size of the unnamed city they live in, and when you insist on coincidence at least have a plausible reason to back it up.
There is the suspension of disbelief and then there is plot coincidence. Something writers do because they need to get from plot point A to plot point B and having a coincidence is the easiest way to do that. Cha Cha flirts with this but never fully gives in. You can give it a pass because it’s a sweet film but under scrutiny, you wonder just how big of a town they live in. Big enough to have bat and bar mitzvahs every week but small enough to run into people at crowded bars.
But maybe that was Raiff’s intention. Characters often talk about their feelings in a way that most people never would but it helps explore the emotional complexity of the world. Andrew speaks out loud about the pains of growing up, which might be a character quirk but sometimes it feels a little much. But Raiff’s strong writing and poetic dialogue keeps the film strongly grounded in its own world.
These are minor criticisms in an otherwise great film, they just keep it from reaching its full potential and pulled me out of the story a few times. Overall Cha Cha is a heartfelt piece of work about realizing your part in the story, transitioning to adulthood, and learning who you are. It’s The Graduate for Gen Z and we might just be better for it.
4/5