Cha Cha Real Smooth — young drifter’s tale is acute, funny and only a little annoying

The Californian shadow of The Graduate falls heavy across the buzzed-about new dramedy Cha Cha Real Smooth, for all that it unfolds on the opposite coast in suburban Livingston, New Jersey. The mood is wry and quizzical, a tale of drifting young manhood amid the US middle class. Sure enough, as with so many comparable movies before it, director Cooper Raiff’s second feature premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was bought by Apple for a reported $15mn.

Raiff also wrote and stars in the film, which is acute, funny and only a little annoying. Still just 25, he is clearly more driven than his alter-ego, Andrew. The character is three years younger, true, but without a plan, returned after college to his hometown and family. For work, there is a fast-food palace and an accidental side hustle that begins after coaxing his younger brother and friends into cutting loose at a bat mitzvah party.

With Andrew suddenly sought after by local parents, a small business is born warming up dance floors for bashful 13-year-olds. The gig is ideal for his buoyant personality — and as dramatic metaphor, the man-child stranded between kids and adults.

A trace of Mrs Robinson arrives with Domino (Dakota Johnson), a free-spirited Livingston mother whose autistic daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt) Andrew bonds with. Johnson always has presence, though the character can feel like an aunt of the far-fetched Manic Pixie Dream Girls who once filled US indie movies.

The film doesn’t always avoid the twee. And yet there is also a case for the defence. Raiff is good at marking out how maddening adult compromises can look at 22. It helps too that for all his occasional camera-hogging, he makes room for fine performances from co-stars. Burghardt, autistic in real life, is an actress of huge charm. And elsewhere, the movie handles mental health so gracefully, older film-makers could watch and learn. 

★★★☆☆

In cinemas and on Apple TV Plus now