Dallas Filmmaker Premieres ‘Cha Cha Real Smooth’ At Sundance

DALLAS (Jan. 27, 2022) — There is a moment in “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” which premiered Sunday at the virtual Sundance Film Festival, in which one character tells another, “I’m so comfortable with you, and I don’t know why.” Among many thoughtful lines of dialogue in Cooper Raiff’s second film, this one stands out as a central theme. It is an exceptionally comforting film about life after college and figuring out young adulthood. The only difference is, we know why.

Raiff wrote, directed and stars in “Cha Cha Real Smooth” as Andrew, a floundering post-grad who gets a job as a “party-starter” on the Bar Mitzvah circuit in his New Jersey town and befriends the family of an autistic girl.

“It’s about people finding love and learning how to love, and starting people’s parties and starting your own party,” the Dallas native told Sundance audiences this weekend. “One thing that was really great about playing a party-starter is that’s kind of what directing feels like. It felt very much the same.”

The 24-year-old Greenhill School graduate won the 2020 SXSW Grand Jury Prize for his directorial debut “Shithouse,” produced by fellow Texas native Jay Duplass. He acts in both films and told D Magazine that four years at the Dallas Young Actors Studio nurtured his “knowledge of dialogue and character development.”

Though he told Sundance audiences, “I’m not a great actor…I pulled from my feelings,” his performance is outstanding, along with producer Dakota Johnson, whose character Domino forms a bond with Andrew alongside her daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt in her first feature film).

“The relationships are not common on screen, but they are common in life. And it’s important that they’re on screen,” said Johnson, who produced the film with her company TeaTime Pictures. "I think the thing that I love so much is Cooper’s voice, it’s his heart. The way he studies people, the way he absorbs people and how he is able to write them is really special…His voice and the way he sees the world should be seen by a lot of people.”

And it will be: according to Deadline, the feature sold Wednesday to Apple for $15 million, the 2022 festival’s largest deal yet. A well-earned feat for a thoughtful, enjoyable film, which Sundance Senior Programmer Basil Tajikistan said impressed him with "its charm, authenticity and freshness."

It’s easy to spend two hours with a character as lovable and realistic as Andrew, to see how he navigates complicated territory with heart, uncertainty and a whole lot of twenty-something humor. But it's also a film about family, growing up and learning who you are even when life makes that difficult. After two pandemic years, it's refreshing and rare to see such decency onscreen.

“It’s a sort of love letter to parents, especially parents of disabled kids and parents who had kids young and surrogate parents, who are really awesome,” Raiff said. “I feel super lucky to be able to share them with you and share this movie with you. This movie means a lot to me, and I hope it means a lot to you by the end.”

Mission accomplished.