Following on from a film of promise with his last film, Cooper Raiff returns to write, direct, star and produce another original film, this time with the simple rom-com dramedy of Cha Cha Real Smooth. The tale of a 20 something coming back home as he looks for his place in the world, feeling quite lost, only to fall in love with a married woman over ten years his senior with an autistic daughter, aswell as starting up a Bah Mits-Vah Dj and party starter service. Raiff is a figure in a mould we’ve seen many times before with his sort of all encompassing creative hold on his projects, however here with Cha Cha, despite a few good gags here and there and plenty of likeable performances, a solid and consistent rhythm is never made. Not where drama is concerned, nor romance, nor bar these few gags where comedy is concerned either.
It is clear the mould that Cooper Raiff is fitting into and although overall one can find his level of creative controls endearing and plenty of credit can be granted on a surface level, the film we actually get here just did not in any major way do anything for me. Raiff’s direction is solid and the film has a good pace to it, with lots of humorous abrupt edits out of scenes for comedic effect, but not too much flare beyond those choices. Most of the directional quality comes from keeping the story on its track with a few glimpses to the side then and again for interesting outer elements that don’t make their way into the film beyond these mentions. The shame of course when it comes to Raiff’s writing is that much of these glanced moments spur more interest than the plot we’re currently watching. The tale of Raiff’s Andrew and his love affair of sorts with Dakota Johnson’s Domino is a fine arc, but has so many obstacles in its way narrativley and investment wise that overall I could not help but feel deeply un-invested. Dakota Johnson is her normal likeable, very good self, but overall the character is just a concoction of contrivances and contradictions that is less so a ‘perfect creation’ but rather ‘realistic’ to a fault. It’s just no good and at the end of the day I end up not rooting for the couple, nor even our lead, and as much as the film is a veiled character study of this in-between guy, I just don’t think the aim for Raiff was to make him as unlikable at times as he is, nor make Domino as completely un-believable as she is. But also Raiff does himself no favours by introducing a wonderful other love interest into the mix who is just as delightful, attractive and well paired with Andrew. So not only is the romance not too effecting, but also there aren’t any stakes to fuel it either.
Investment comes from Raiff’s relationship with his family. Evan Assante as Andrew’s younger brother is humble and realistic and nicely drawn, but nothing new or fresh. Brad Garrett does some brilliant work as stepdad Greg and is wonderfully just and subtle and quiet. Leslie Mann ends up ultimately to be the best factor of the film and when Raiff is exploring the relationship between Andrew and his mother (Mann) the film hits a pace and a frankness that leads to genuine emotion. But even then it’s still nothing fresh, original or an exciting version of what we have seen before. An element of the film that does work and I’m sure was intended as the heart of the piece is the relationship Andrew has with Vanessa Burghart as Domino’s autistic daughter, aswell as his relationship with the two of them as a pseudo-family unit. Burghart is sweet, funny and touching, but overall this element of the film too left me a little cold. Everything is just a mild swing and barley connects. Big swings are more interesting. This doesn’t have many, or any really.
Unfortunately for me this was a pretty average 5/10 film, I always want to give praise to original films from new filmmakers, but this just was built upon such a bland concept, whilst simultaneously being based upon at least five different angles. With Johnsons’ Domino we find the creation of something beyond The Manic Pixie Dreamgirl and instead a creation of complete idealism and semi-fetishisation of struggles of all sorts. Raiff is a figure who it is easy to root for as a filmmaker, but his character of Andrew and Raiff’s on-screen persona is harder to root for, and is less consistently charismatic and more so infrequently charming.
P.S. As a loveless and relationship-less (and anything-less, boo-hoo, yes I know) 22 year old man in between jobs and finding nothing in his career to fulfil him, this should have been my favourite film of the year according to the most bland critics who believe that any film starring people of your likeness is something you’ll enjoy, or the most frustrating of twitterers who state that any film about people not like you “wasn’t made for you anyway”. Well, perhaps I’ve never found myself so unsatisfied and overall underwhelmed by a film ‘qoute-un-qoute’ ‘made for me’. I have no idea who this is made for actually, if it was made for me, I apologise Mr Raiff. But I have no idea who this is for.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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