Cha Cha Real Smooth
Cooper Raiff's sophomore strong sophomore effort is an often relatable, heartwarming, and triumphant tale of finding yourself.
I graduated college back in December 2020. An entire semester early. I was excited: a new beginning, I was finally entering adulthood. I felt unstoppable.
The following months were a crushing disappointment. I struggled to find work, most of my job applications were instantly turned down or I never heard back. I felt stuck, and lost, my future and my adulthood felt directionless and it didn’t help that I was still living at home with my parents.
For some, the post-college life comes easy, especially if one already has a job lined up right out of the gate. But that’s rare. For years movies and TV shows have portrayed this post-college life as one of adventure, love and success, when in fact, the vast majority have that same feeling of being stuck in the same place with our aspirations for the future fading more and more into uncertainty.
It wasn’t until over half a year later that I delved into doing freelance work writing about pop culture. It may not have paid too much, certainly not enough to finally move out and live my 20s, but I felt that I found my purpose. Eventually, I was brought on as a full-time editor to one of the sites I freelanced for and since then I feel I found my purpose. I finally had the directions I needed to take for success not just career-wise, but mentally.
Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth” is the first movie that I’ve seen that really captured that feeling. I first watched the film back in January when it was part of the online edition of the Sundance Film Festival. I was still depending on freelancing during that time and my career future was uncertain. But “Cha Cha” spoke to me. I finally felt heard and I feel many others in similar situations will feel heard when they watch it.
The film opens with a 12-year-old Andrew attending a Bar Mitzvah, where he confesses his love for the much-older party starter, who politely rejects him when he attempts to ask her out. Cutting back to the present day, Andrew (Raiff) is a recent college graduate, his girlfriend is moving away to Barcelona, and he’s having to crash back at home with his mother (Leslie Mann), younger brother David (Evan Assante), and stepfather (Brad Garret).
Working a dead-end job in a mall food court, Andrew’s entire perspective starts to shift on a fateful night, while chaperoning David at the Bar Mitzvah of his classmate. There he meets the young enigmatic mother Domino (Dakota Johnson), who spends each Bar Mitzvah sitting in the back corner with her autistic daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt). Striking an immediate connection and revving up the party’s atmosphere, Andrew’s mundane post-college life starts to shift. He’s found a new gig working as a party-starter at Bar Mitzvahs and has become close with Domino and Lola.
The thing about “Cha Cha Real Smooth” is that it’s not the romantic comedy that one may think it is. It’s not necessarily even one of those romcoms about unrequited love. While Andrew’s infatuation and bond with Domino plays a major role in the film, nothing is as clear-cut as it seems.
Domino is a fully fleshed-out character, and while she attempts to hide parts of herself, Dakota Johnson’s performance helps take the audience inside her life with Lola and her seemingly distant fiancé (Raúl Castillo). Both Andrew and Domino are looking for some sort of direction in their lives, which makes their bond feel authentic, despite the fact that they’re in different stages in their lives. In fact, one of the most intriguing aspects of the film isn’t Andrew’s bond with Domino, but his budding friendship with Lola and his relationship with David.
At only 25 years of age, Raiff just gets it and that’s especially clear in his screenplay. Much like his debut film “Shithouse,” “Cha Cha Real Smooth” rides that line between sentimentality and brutal honesty.
Right from the get-go, we know that Andrew and Domino aren’t meant to be together, not only would it not feel right to the story but it’s neither realistic nor the ending we as an audience would want. The way he writes the dialogue his character shares with his younger co-stars feels organic and naturalistic. Both Vanessa Burghardt and Evan Assante give impressive performances.
Burghardt in particular is the film’s true breakout star. After recent films like Sia’s “Music” portrayed the autistic community in a regressive and unintentionally mawkish light, “Cha Cha Real Smooth” handles it with such grace and care. Burghardt injects so much personality into Lola and the film never looks down on her or treats her like she’s a lesser human being because of her autism, nor does it ever treat the diagnosis like it's a bad thing. Assante also excels as Andrew’s awkward brother David, who never feels like an adult writing his dialogue, Assante shows a lot of vulnerability and easiness in front of the camera, which could make him a big name in the future.
The supporting cast is also strong, particularly Leslie Mann, who plays Andrew and David’s mother. In a lot of ways, we get a sense that her past was tumultuous, much like Domino’s, but it never impacted her love and affection for her family and her husband. In the end, despite her role being smaller, Mann gives what may very well be the best performance of her career.
“Cha Cha Real Smooth” is a film that is going to speak to a lot of people, especially those who’ve recently graduated from college, are about to graduate, or are still trying to figure themselves out. It’s a film that I saw at the right time and finally made me feel heard and many others will feel the same way when watching this. Much like Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade” perfectly captured the modern landscape of American middle schools, Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth” seamlessly portrays that post-college feeling of feeling lost and finding yourself in ways you’d never expect.