Now it’s time to get funky.
Just 25 years old, Texan filmmaker Cooper Raiff has arrived during cinema’s Covid era to dispel the notion that only superhero spectacles are permitted the chance to say something these days. After breaking out with his “loner college kid come alive” Sh*thouse for IFC Films in 2020, Raiff is back in bigger-budgeted, but nevertheless intimate fashion as a lead lucky – or, perhaps unlucky – to be in love.
The former saw Raiff pit himself as a homesick social slacker lacking in confidence. Meanwhile, Cha Cha Real Smooth – which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23 and at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 13 before releasing to Apple TV+ on June 17 – platforms the triple-threat writer-director-actor hitting the ground running, extrovertedly. In fact, save for some drunkenly poor decision-making when the “all is lost” beat of the plot called for it, Raiff’s Andrew is characteristically flawless while tangled in a web of good-old-fashioned “Twentysomethingitis” otherwise known as professional purgatory. It’s his older brother designation worn like a badge of honor, infectious charm and kindhearted nature that inspire the summertime bar mitzvah party starter to take up a mutual, and eventually quite intense, flirtation with Domino (Dakota Johnson), the young mother of the autistic Lola (Vanessa Burghardt).
Trust The Messenger, and believe the hype. It’s a less unsettling The Graduate for the modern day with shades of The Wedding Singer, Rushmore and not “Grey,” with Johnson’s chilling screen presence subverting all naysayers’ most misguided and pessimistic projections. At every stopgap, Cha Cha Real Smooth reminds moviegoers – especially millennial and “Gen Z” takers – that it’s OK to (1) think you’re soulmates with what really may amount to a crush, and (2) long for one’s life to “finally begin,” as they say. The film not-so-coincidentally commences with middle school Andrew confessing to his mother (Leslie Mann) he’s in love with a bar mitzvah party starter, a pretty older girl whose only crime was being nice to a teen-aged boy. A decade later, the wiser yet still partial to bright eyes Andrew is at it again: only this time, Domino did more than offer him a glance. She took an emotionally mature for his 22 years of age hand in dance, then subsequently on the ride of a lifetime – and not the kind you’re thinking.
Be on the lookout for Johnson’s name in the “Best Supporting Actress” conversation as awards season gets cooking this Fall; and for fruitful mention of Raiff’s in the trades, as he has more than earned the heat that will surely result in a frenzy of funds for his next feature-length foray. Reportedly, that film just might be The Trashers – starring David Harbour (Stranger Things, The Newsroom) as James Galante, the real-life convicted mobster with infamous United Hockey League ties.
What Raiff has done with a budget, Apple having purchased “Cha Cha’s” distribution rights for $15 million, according to Deadline Hollywood, and a few names – welcome back Everybody Loves Raymond’s Brad Garrett, it’s been too long – is nothing short of astounding. With one foot in the Hollywood revolving door, and the other still emphatically planted in Indieland, Raiff can recapture the Sh*thouse flare without ever being labeled a sellout. However, should Raiff one day plateau out of the small-screen and into cape fare, you can bet your bottom dollar the hero will connect with a girl – romantically or platonically – whose closest confidant until their meeting was a bedroom-kept housepet with a carefully crafted backstory.
Sh*thouse brought the metaphorical house down for everyone privileged to experience it before Cha Cha Real Smooth narrowly supplanted it as the superior Raiff picture. Although, that’s comparing Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. And, unlike with Quentin Tarantino, the camera unironically loves Raiff just as much as he loves to call the shots from behind it. Really, as a jack-of-many-trades artist, is there anything better than that?
In lieu of answering, and while you await what the Kill Bill’s, Django Unchained’s and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s of Raiff’s here-to-stay career will look like and where they will stack up, watch the feelgood funhouse-meets-heartbreak hotel in question and spread the word. Two hops this time.
