Cha Cha Real Smooth

Cha Cha Real Smooth review, written by Dominic Rizzi

Written by: Cooper Raiff
Directed by: Cooper Raiff
Rating: 🏆 Most Excellent

Fresh out of college and stuck at his New Jersey home without a clear path forward, 22-year-old Andrew begins working as a party starter for bar/bat mitzvahs—where he strikes up a unique friendship with a young mom and her teenage daughter.

Cooper Raiff is definitely another guy to keep an eye out for as the new decade encroaches upon us. I have yet to see his directorial debut Shithouse, but if it's anything like this movie then this guy is definitely a talent in the making. I definitely get the sense that a lot of people are not going to quite vibe or get with this movie, call it shallow and what not, but this movie just spoke to me on a whole other level. 

Very similar to my two other favorite movies of the year, Everything Everywhere All at Once and On the Count of Three, it's capturing people's feelings of aimlessness and lack of purpose in these troubling, post-Covid times. What we have here is yet another coming of age/trying to find one’s self post-adolescence movie. It has a lot to say a lot about youth vs. experience, naivete about the world, differences of perception between generations, and understanding that sometimes, it's ok to be confused and not really know anything. 

Cooper definitely still has a lot to learn as a filmmaker, and he doesn't go as deep as he probably could, but by the time that ending rolls around it hits like a bag of bricks right in the feels. I know that movies are supposed to be fantasy, but I usually find that my favorites are the ones that mix fantasies with a healthy dose of reality, because that's what emulates real life so much: we always try to live in fantasies, before being brought swiftly back to reality. Also major props to the whole supporting cast. Dakota Johnson reminds me of a girl I was dating not even a few months ago so much that it’s scary; the kids who play her daughter and Cooper Raiff's brother are so real and down to earth, and Leslie Mann deserves an Oscar for her performance as his mom and I could not be more serious. Apple TV+ did it again. Now watch this win Best Picture.