Cha Cha Real Smooth

by Julian Spivey

Director: Cooper Raiff
Starring: Cooper Raiff, Dakota Johnson & Vanessa Burghardt 
Rated: R
Runtime: 1 hour & 47 minutes

Oh, to have had the talent of Cooper Raiff at 24 years old. If you don’t know the name yet you likely will before long, but Cooper Raiff is a director, writer, actor extraordinaire. He’s made two films in his early filmmaking career and the second “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” streaming in AppleTV+ right now, has a whole lotta heart and isn’t afraid to show it.

Raiff first made his mark in 2020 with his directorial debut (that he also wrote and acted in) called “Shithouse,” which I haven’t yet seen but was a critical darling upon its release. His sophomore effort “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” which comes from a line in the DJ Casper dance hit “Cha Cha Slide,” premieres at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival in January and quickly had its distribution rights purchased by AppleTV+ for $15 million.

In the film Raiff plays Andrew, a recent Tulane University graduate who moves back into his parents home and is pretty aimless. He wants to travel to Spain to be with his college girlfriend, but that plan doesn’t last long. When he takes his younger brother, David (Evan Assante), to a bar mitzvah that is lame as hell Andrew encourages everybody at the party to get up and dance – including an autistic teen girl named Lola (Vanessa Burghardt) and her young mom Domino (Dakota Johnson).

Andrew is so successful as a “party starter,” all of the other parents seeing their teen children enjoying themselves so much quickly gobble him up to do the same at their children’s upcoming bar mitzvahs and parties.

Andrew is incredibly charming – Domino is constantly calling him sweet, even if he brushes this off. It’s rare to see a character this charming, especially with the aimlessness of his life, on film these days, but Raiff isn’t afraid to show this. The film quite broadly wears its charm on its sleeves. Andrew believes in soul mates for pete’s sake!

The way Andrew interacts with Lola is beautiful – knowing her disability, but never talking down to her or treating her as a child. Lola is adorable and this is as much to do with Burghardt, who has autism in real life, as it is Raiff’s script.

Johnson’s Domino is immediately alluring the moment we meet her – part of it is the gift of looks her parents (Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson) gave her, but much of it has to do with the way she carries herself and even touches put in the script by Raiff, like just the uniqueness of her name.
The chemistry between all of the performers in “Cha Cha Real Smooth” is terrific, especially that between Raiff and Johnson, whom you immediately want together and expect together from the start. The fact that the film doesn’t necessarily go down the path you think it will by its end is what makes it unique and in some ways maybe a bit infuriating, but by the end of the movie everyone is on the path that makes sense for them, even if not 100 percent completely thrilled by it. It’s a fact of life. One that might be hard for the idealistic young, but one it doesn’t take long into adulthood to realize.

It's terrific to see a young filmmaker come out with something this good at such a young age. I look forward to following Raiff’s career into the future.