Cha Cha Real Smooth
Cooper Raiff’s social realistic romcom was a hit at Sundance but in spite of its virtues it fails to convince.
Nice while it lasts: Leslie Mann, Evan Assante, Cooper Raiff and Brad Garrett
Cha Cha Real Smooth is the Mr Nice Guy on the indie Hollywood circuit. It stumbles over itself in its eagerness to please and ticks a lot of social boxes along the way. Yet in spite of its virtues – and it has many – it is never quite believable enough, nor weird enough, nor funny enough.
It is written and directed by its leading man, Cooper Raiff, who gives off a Jack Whitehall vibe as an impossibly virtuous young dude who still shares a bedroom with his baby brother, David (Evan Assante). He is the saviour of everybody’s soul, the perfect babysitter, the perfect son, the ideal big brother and everybody’s best friend. He’s even got a great rapport with a hamster called Jerry. His name is Andrew and his dream is to visit Barcelona, which is not so easy when you’re still living with your mother in New Jersey. Andrew also has a thing for older women, and when he lands a part-time gig as a “party starter” on the local bar mitzvah scene, he finds himself in the right arena.
In the prologue, a twelve-year-old Andrew professes his undying love to a contemporary of his mother’s (a bipolar Leslie Mann). The woman is flattered but breaks Andrew’s heart. We then jump forward ten years and little Andy is now a tall young man with a full beard working in a deserted fast food joint called Meat Sticks. Of course, he wants to work for a more conscientious organisation because, you know, Andrew is a really, really good guy.
It almost feels voyeuristic peering into this masturbatory universe of the director’s, a far cry from the self-flagellant world of, say, Orson Welles’ Charles Foster Kane. Andrew becomes even more of a bleeding heart when he befriends an awkward, autistic schoolgirl (an excellent Vanessa Burghardt) he rescues at a bar mitzvah. She’s called Lola and has an uncanny knack for solving Rubik’s cubes and collects posters of potato mashers. But she comes with a beautiful mother (of course), played by Dakota Johnson, who claims that she can’t remember “what ‘better’ feels like.”
As a scenarist, Raiff has a neat way with unpolished dialogue. He has also secured persuasive turns from his cast, although his own performance leaves a perplexing hole at the centre of the drama. Andrew is too good to be true and seems to be delivering a constant round of one-liners that never hit home. And maybe Cha Cha Real Smooth is just too slick for its own good, like a romcom elbowing its way out of a slice of social realism. The soft, gloopy score doesn’t help and while Raiff is an actor-director glowing with potential, his enormously amiable film fails to ring true.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Cooper Raiff, Vanessa Burghardt, Brad Garrett, Leslie Mann, Evan Assante, Raúl Castillo, Odeya Rush, Brooklyn Sloane Ramire, Javien Mercado, Chris Newman.
Dir Cooper Raiff, Pro Ro Donnelly, Erik Feig, Dakota Johnson, Cooper Raiff and Jessica Switch, Screenplay Cooper Raiff, Ph Cristina Dunlap, Pro Des Celine Diano, Ed Cooper Raiff, Henry Hayes and Colin Patton, Music Este Haim and Chris Stracey, Costumes Michelle Thompson.
TeaTime Pictures/Picturestart/Endeavor Content-Apple TV+.
107 mins. USA. 2022. UK and US Rel: 17 June 2022. Cert. 15.
