“Failure to launch” films tend to be whiny and self-indulgent, so it’s refreshing to see writer/director Cooper Raiff move in a different direction. Cha Cha Real Smooth bubbles with exuberance and thoughtful, likable performances.
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| Family dinners are a bit uncomfortable for Andrew (Cooper Raiff, left), who gets defensive about his lack of career resolve. But this doesn't bother David (Evan Assante), who worships the ground on which his older brother walks. |
Raiff also stars as Andrew, freshly post-college and truly, madly, deeply in love with girlfriend Maya (Amara Pedroso). Unfortunately, she has relocated to Barcelona to finish her studies, and he lacks the funds to follow. With no other options, he moves back in with his mother Lisa (Leslie Mann) and stepfather Greg (Brad Garrett), where he shares a bedroom with his much younger brother David (Evan Assante).
David is invited to a Bar Mitzvah a few days later; he encourages Andrew to tag along. The evening proves transformative: Andrew meets the coy, sexy and mildly mysterious Domino (Dakota Johnson), attending with her autistic teenage daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt).
His enthusiastic flair for encouraging the kids — and their parents — to the dance floor, also makes him the go-to “party starter” for the neighborhood’s many upcoming Bar and Bat Mitzvahs: a far better gig than his soulless part-time job at a mall fast-food joint called Meat Sticks. Anything that’ll help get him to Barcelona faster.
What follows is built primarily on relationships, several of which are captivating. Andrew has an amiably devoted bond with his mother, who cheerfully tolerates her elder son’s directionless indecision. (“Do you really want to go to Barcelona?” she perceptively asks, at one point, and then smiles indulgently when he insists that yes, he does.)
Raiff and Mann work well together during such moments, and Raiff’s many scenes with Assante are equally captivating; the fraternal bond feels authentic. David is desperate to get his first kiss from a girl he has long crushed over; Andrew offers insightful encouragement. There’s no sense that David minds suddenly sharing his bedroom; indeed, he clearly worships Andrew (who, to his credit, does not abuse that trust).
Even the mostly silent Greg, played by Garrett as a stoic, imposing presence, is intriguing. Andrew can’t figure out what his mother sees in the guy, as they seem to have nothing in common. “He makes me happy,” she explains, during a key moment, and Mann earnestly sells the emotion of those four words.
But the film focuses primarily on Andrew’s growing fascinating with Domino, who has something of an unspoken “reputation” in the neighborhood. Her manic mood swings make her seem bipolar: flirty, teasing and radiantly sensuous at one moment — erotic to a degree that Johnson has long displayed, in films such as A Bigger Splash and the Fifty Shades of Grey series — and then miserably forlorn in the next.
Her coquettish tendencies notwithstanding, Domino ostensibly has a fiancé, Joseph (Raúl Castillo), who never seems to be around. Andrew can’t figure out if she’s lonely, frustrated or simply overwhelmed by the constant care and supervision that Lola requires. But Domino is genuinely impressed — and grateful — by Andrew’s instinctive understanding of how best to connect with Lola; indeed, relating to people appears to be his super power (which he doesn’t seem to perceive in himself).
Despite the obvious sexual tension both feel, it’s clear that Andrew and Domino aren’t good for each other. Part of his interest stems from a long-ago incident — revealed in this film’s prologue — when, as a love-struck adolescent, he worked up the courage to ask a much older woman for a date, and was heartbroken when she gently refused.
Domino — during her more rational moments — knows too well the dismay of having “missed her 20s” due to the responsibilities of young motherhood: a fate she does not wish on Andrew.
But despite the strength of Johnson’s performance — a confessional moment is one of the finest bits of acting we’re likely to see this year — it remains unclear what Raiff, as writer/director, is attempting to convey with this relationship. Andrew’s growing bond with Lola also doesn’t quite gel, and although Raiff coaxes a quietly endearing performance from Burghardt — who is genuinely autistic — viewers are likely to be dissatisfied with where this increasingly awkward dynamic ultimately heads.
Joseph, when we finally spend time with him, is an extremely odd duck; his behavior isn’t the slightest bit credible. At times, weirdly, he radiates menace; more to the point, why would this guy ever get engaged to somebody like Domino?
More crucially, despite his good-natured tendencies, Andrew is unacceptably flawed. He frequently consumes a pint of straight vodka, even during his party-starter gigs; he gets caught being drunk at one such event, behaves quite badly, and yet — inexplicably — continues to get hired thereafter, which makes no sense whatsoever. (The point is made, early on, that this is a very close and chatty network of Jewish families.)
Worse yet, Andrew drives drunk, which is completely beyond the pale. (This isn’t the 1950s, when such behavior was frequent with movie characters.)
I’m reminded of Greta Gerwig’s title character in 2012’s Lola Versus, whose ludicrously frequent binge drinking completely offset that young woman’s efforts at emotional maturity. Some bad behavior simply cannot be excused in pursuit of a happy ending.
That’s a shame, because isolated chunks of Raiff’s film are quite charming. But the whole, alas, is significantly less than the sum of its parts.
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