Cha Cha Real Smooth
APPLE TV+Unfortunately, Cha Cha Real Smooth has nothing to do with Mr C The Slide Man or his excellent disco-plaguing track. What it does have is a fascinating piece that will stick with those that find themselves in similar shoes to the leading characters. Cooper Raiff directs a feature that looks to delight audiences with the abyss of fear that offers itself to a new generation. Fresh faces with fear in their eyes and ideas in their heads march into that great unknown and find themselves in unique and strange situations that appear to benefit their lives, enrich their experiences and take hold of their souls. Or, at least, it looks as though Raiff hopes to stun with that line-up of themes.
Raiff stars and directs in an impressive return to form after the mediocre features that came before it. Shithouse and Cha Cha Real Smooth share similar themes of Americanised humour and qualities that feel stagnant, since it is a riff that has appeared for a decade, unchanged. Reality comes crashing through the dreams of someone hoping for bigger, better dreams. The fact is, and Cha Cha Real Smooth rightly interprets this, is that dreams are just that. Very few will achieve them, and fewer still will keep them alive and afloat as monetarily sound fields of dreams. Raiff takes on the many that will not achieve what they love but tries to seek out some hope in the dreams he held onto.
He does that well alongside some excellent casting choices. From the doting mother played by Leslie Mann to the stubborn but equally dispensable stepfather figure role from Brad Garrett. There are plenty of supporting performers that provide layer upon layer to the backdrop Raiff experiments with, safely and fairly predictably, but with a real heart to it, that feels lacking in other features in the same vein. It’s the pain behind the smile that rests on Andrew’s (Raiff) face so frequently that matters most of all. It reflects throughout Cha Cha Real Smooth, providing a delicate mirror for plenty of audience members who are hit with another round of hard truths and excellent performances, most notably led by Dakota Johnson and Vanessa Burghardt in a great back and forth.
That fresh-out-of-college mindset is a fearless beast that soon finds itself drifting toward ambiguity and distrust of the self and abilities studied for. Cha Cha Real Smooth gets to that somewhat well through a series of youthful looks at life and everything that comes with it. Raiff’s direction feels sleek and packs a heartfelt punch. Rare it is to see a coming-of-age become so powerful an experience; it is not all it seems to be. The genre is still overwrought with cliché as is Cha Cha Real Smooth, but the obvious observations are much lighter, far more amicable here than in other, unfunnier features. Cha Cha Real Smooth is doomed to be compared to Shithouse, but once Raiff has taken himself behind the camera and focuses on interpreting his themes through others, he comes to life. Or, at least, his direction through hard truths and fairly generic leads makes sense.