By: Andrew Wing

Cha Cha Real Smooth is a 2022 American comedy-drama film written, directed, and produced by Cooper Raiff (best known for his debut feature film Shithouse, in which he starred, directed, wrote, produced, and co-edited). Similar to his first film, Raiff also stars in this, with a supporting cast that includes Dakota Johnson (Fifty Shades film series, The Peanut Butter Falcon), Evan Assante, Vanessa Burghardt, Leslie Mann (This Is 40, Blockers), Brad Garrett (Everybody Loves Raymond, Fargo), and Raúl Castillo (Looking, We the Animals).

The plot follows the 22-year-old Andrew (Raiff) who’s fresh out of college and stuck at his New Jersey home without a clear path forward. But when he begins working as a party starter for bar/bat mitzvahs, he strikes up a unique friendship with a young mom (Johnson) and her teenage daughter (Burghardt).

It premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2022. It was released in limited theaters and on Apple TV+ on June 17, 2022.

THE GOOD

I am extremely happy to finally be writing this review because ever since Cha Cha Real Smooth premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, all I have heard is great things. And usually, when it comes to films that do very well at the festivals, we don’t get to see them until the end of the year as their distributors are expecting them to be Oscar contenders. But with this, the comedy-drama film from Cooper Raiff that Apple bought for $15 million, we got to get it on the Apple TV+ streaming service just in time for summer! With that said, I checked it out the first day I could, but did it live up to the hype? Keep reading to find out!

I’ll just get right to the point, it did and it honestly exceeded my expectations. And the main reason it did is Cooper Raiff. I still need to watch his debut feature Shithouse, and after seeing this it will definitely be moving up my watchlist because he absolutely crushed it here as he directed, wrote, and starred in his own film. I’m going to address everything Raiff did here, but I’ll begin with his direction because I loved it. It was just so sensitive and I appreciated how he made the film so funny and sweet, yet very relatable. It was extremely relatable to me especially as a 21-year-old aspiring writer because Raiff’s character Andrew is this recent college graduate struggling to figure out how he is supposed to live his early 20s which I already know is a time in life where you can be kind of desperate for some sort of shape to take form. At the end of the day, it was just so real as he made it a point to dive into the character more and explore what this film was really about.

Next with Raiff’s writing because it was superb. His character Andrew was so charismatic, like arguably one of the most charismatic characters I’ve seen in a film in a long long time. The level of likability his character had was sonridiculous that it had me wishing that I had his ability to just charm everybody I'm around with such ease. But truthfully, it was weird how much I liked admiring the main character of this movie because that’s not the main reason why I watch movies in the first place, but there was just something about this character’s willingness to put themselves out there in such a way, and it was all a credit to how Raiff wrote the character.

So now since I’ve touched on Raiff’s direction and his writing, there is only one thing left to touch on, and that is his acting. I’ve already discussed how much I loved his character Andrew as he just made him so likable and easy to root for, but what really made the film for me was Raiff’s unbelievably natural on-screen chemistry with Dakota Johnson. The romantic tension between the two was undeniable and I just wanted it for them so bad once they met each other. I won’t spoil it when it comes to how their relationship unfolds, but once you as a viewer realize what their relationship means to these characters, you will have no problem with how this film finishes.

But to continue, I have to highlight the other half of that dynamic duo in Dakota Johnson. She was freaking great here and this is right up there as one of her best roles ever with her previous performance in The Lost Daughter (see my full review here). The chemistry she had with Raiff was off the charts, but aside from that, I was buying everything she was selling from start to finish. Johnson definitely had the best supporting performance if you ask me, but to be honest the whole cast was great, from Evan Assante and Vanessa Burghardt in what I think was each of their feature film debuts, to the amazing on-screen couple that was Leslie Mann and Brad Garrett.

In closing, Cooper Raiff stole the show, Dakota Johnson was the best of an all-around fantastic supporting cast, and the film had a great message. It also was beautifully shot by Cristina Dunlap and it had a killer soundtrack. The last thing I will say, and while it’s unlikely, I would love to see this film kind of play out similar to CODA (see my full review here), another film that premiered at Sundance and was eventually purchased by Apple and went on to win Best Picture at this year’s 94th Academy Awards. Now I’ll be honest, I don’t see it winning Best Picture for a number of reasons, but I would love to see it stay relevant for the rest of this year and maybe be in contention for one of the ten Best Picture nominations slots, and also so it can get some support in categories like original screenplay, supporting actress for Dakota Johnson, and definitely lead actor in my opinion for Cooper Raiff, but we will just have to wait and see!

THE BAD

Do your best to keep your emotions in check as I am about to shock you, but I really have nothing bad to say about this film. While it maybe didn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to rom-coms, I never felt for a second that it was retreading any of the territory we’ve seen in past rom-coms. Also, if you’re someone who isn’t a fan of hyper-charismatic protagonists then this isn’t the film for you because that is exactly what Cooper Raiff is in Cha Cha Real Smooth. But despite him taking the risky move by having his personality have so much of a hold over the entire picture, it totally paid off as he was perfect for the role as only he could’ve played the character of Andrew.

THE VERDICT

In just his second outing as a writer-director, Cooper Raiff cements his place as a major new voice in the movie industry that we aren’t soon going to forget with his comedy-drama film Cha Cha Real Smooth that I would say is the perfect modern rom-com. Raiff also starred in the film and he showed that he is just as good of a dramatic and comedic actor as he is a filmmaker as his confident portrayal of the character was super infectious and incredibly magnetic from beginning to end.

Dakota Johnson also gave arguably the best performance of her young career, and all in all, this is a very charming, wholesome, and feel-good film that had me beaming right from the start, and it never faltered in that respect. I’ll shut up now because I could go on for days, but it is such an easy movie to fall in love with, and with that and also the fact that there are a lot of different things one can take away from it, I think it’s endlessly rewatchable.