Delayed Reaction: Cha Cha Real Smooth

Premise: A fresh out of college young man takes a job as a Bar Mitsvah hype man while he figures out the next phase of his life.

 

I’m hitting that age where it makes me furious to see people younger than me who are so talented. Cooper Raiff is about a decade younger than me, and he has made his second movie, Cha Cha Real Smooth, in which he is the star, writer, and director. The movie took the Audience Award at Sundance, and dammit, I loved this movie. What right does he have to be so young and talented? Granted, this isn’t the first time I’ve run into this. Even the young mother he bonds with, Dakota Johnson, whose daughter is going to these Bar Mitsvah’s is a couple years younger than me. Being more successful and younger than me is nothing new. For some reason it really hit me with this movie though. I think it’s because I want to grow up to be Cooper Raiff in this movie.

 

I’m so impressed with this movie. It’s technically a pretty standard coming of age story. The main character, Andrew (played by Raiff), isn’t overcoming any major hardships. He moves back home after graduating from college. I don’t think he’s dealing with any debt. His family is middle to upper-middle class. He’s a vanilla straight white male. He’s a really nice dude. His only real problem is that he’s out of college and not sure what he wants to do next. It’s the panic of options. I relate to that. In an abstract sense, a lot of people relate to that. It’s less a question of who you want to be but how you want to be it.

 

I feel like I’m doing a bad job selling this movie. It’s very good, but I want to make it clear that the stakes a low. That’s a lot of the charm. The main relationship is between Andrew and the mom, Domino, played by Dakota Johnson. There’s a will they/won’t they to them, but it’s more about examining the different places they are in life. No one in the movie is an easy villain. The dynamics between Andrew and Domino aren’t clear. Andrew starts babysitting her autistic daughter. There’s a genuine bond there that has nothing to do with Domino, where other movies would treat that as a means to an end. The place where the movie ultimately ends up is where I expected, but the way it gets there is very satisfying. It’s not too neat. It doesn’t sell anyone out. It’s just a very, very good coming-of-age story, in a thoughtful and crowd-pleasing way.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend