Cha Cha Real Smooth Review: Cooper Raiff’s Second Feature Suffers from Tunnel Vision

Early in Cooper Raiff’s Cha Cha Real Smooth, Andrew (Raiff) walks around the bar mitzvah of one of his little brother David’s (Evan Assante) classmates, convincing guests to get on the dance floor. At one point, he approaches an autistic girl, Lola (Vanessa Burghardt), whose mother, Domino (Dakota Johnson), assures him that she won’t dance, offering him $300 if he manages to persuade her. Within a minute, the impossibly charming Andrew has gotten Lola up out of her chair and the girl has the time of her life.

It’s a fitting introduction to Raiff’s solipsistic follow-up to Shithouse, as it establishes both the filmmaker’s unwavering belief in Andrew’s ability to charm the pants off of everyone and his need to have us drink from the well of the recent college grad’s charisma. Andrew is, in fact, so successful as the unprompted, self-professed life of the party that he’s even recruited by several mothers to work as a “party starter” at upcoming bar and bat mitzvahs. Aside from giving Andrew a platform to flaunt his alluring personality, this allows him the chance to further bond with Domino and Lola, who also frequently attend these ceremonies.

Andrew’s life isn’t exactly perfect: While his girlfriend is studying in Barcelona on a Fulbright scholarship, he’s working a dead-end job at a mall restaurant and living at home with his warmhearted mother (Leslie Mann) and dull, crabby step-dad (Brad Garrett), who Andrew thinks isn’t good enough for her. But rather than take a page from Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco or Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World and thoughtfully reflect on post-collegiate ennui and disillusionment, Raiff settles for erecting a monument to Andrew’s awesomeness.

Throughout Cha Cha Real Smooth, Raiff doesn’t subject Andrew’s neediness and weird insistence on sticking his nose into other people’s business to much scrutiny. And since Domino and his mother’s partners are presented as mostly lifeless beings—as well as inattentive in the case of Domino’s fiancé, Joseph (Raúl Castillo)—Andrew’s intrusions are presented as, if not exactly necessary, then more than a little gallant.

Especially when it comes to Domino, Andrew’s unbelievably profound kindness, such as the way that he endears himself to Lola and repeatedly plays the white knight for her and her mother, feels less like a natural extension of the character than a self-conscious put-on on Raiff’s part. At one point, when Domino tells Andrew, “You look like the sweetest person ever,” it’s clear that we’re all supposed to be nodding along in agreement.

Cha Cha Real Smooth might have come across less self-satisfied had it at least shown a real and concerted interest in any of the characters who are so overwhelmingly enchanted by Andrew. For one, there’s barely more than a nod to his mother’s crushing bipolar disorder. And while we get a sense of the deep bond between Domino and Lola, as well as the challenges that the former faced from having a child at a young age, we so frequently see her coming away smitten with Andrew that she comes to channel the spirit of the manic pixie dream girl.

The struggles of these characters are ultimately explored only as a means to prop up Andrew’s seemingly boundless altruism, solidifying his role as a healer and compassionate listener. Cha Cha Real Smooth may not provide the proverbial happy ending with regard to Andrew and Domino, but even in the film’s final moments, it’s difficult to shake how a certain revelation about Domino and Joseph’s relationship is revealed so as to maximize emotional impact. And yet, the moment is less about the sacrifices that Domino has had to make throughout her life than it is about how it affects Andrew. Such is Raiff’s tunnel vision: He’s too enamored with his own character to realize that he’s often the least interesting person in the room.