Sundance Notes: Day 4

Cooper Raiff won the top prize at SXSW just a year ago with “Shithouse.” The 22-year-old director/actor is back with his second feature. Playing the US Dramatic Competition, “Cha Cha Cha Real Smooth” stars Raiff as Andrew, a Bar Mitzvah party starter who falls hard for Domino (Dakota Johnson), mother to Lola, an autistic child, and engaged to a man she doesn’t want to marry. He strikes up a friendship with both of them, coming over to their house, babysitting Lola and flirting mad with Domino. Obviously, the age gap between them is an issue, but their chemistry isn’t — Raiff and Johnson’s scenes together ooze with romantic yearning. “Cha Cha Cha Real Smooth” pleases due to its performances, including career-best work from Johnson, and Raiff’s smartly written screenplay, which has the kind of humane honesty missing in most romcoms. It might feel like a familiar narrative, but this isn’t a simplistic film — it understands attraction and knows that it’s never as black and white as most of the mainstream depicts it to be. [B/B+]

I was really open to enjoying Lena Dunham’s “Sharp Stick,” which has turned out to be the most maligned film of Sundance 2022. Channeling her inner Todd Solondz, Dunham has her naive lead protagonist, 26-year-old Sarah Jo (Kristine Froseth), caregiver to Zach, a child with an intellectual disability. Sarah Jo is eager to lose her virginity, and decides to pull the moves on Zach’s thick-headed father, Josh (Jon Bernthal). She wants him to teach her all about the sex she feels she’s missed out on for her entire life. Dunham tries to make her audience as uncomfortable as possible, but what is supposed to be risk-taking actually feels contrived. Sarah Jo is a character veering between caricature and sitcom, the kind of person you absolutely don’t believe could exist in real life. This awkward, mentally delayed, occasionally radical statement from Dunham is confoundingly childish in its view of humanity. [D]

“Good Luck, Leo Grande” has been getting mostly good reviews from critics, with some predicting Emma Thompson as a Best Actress contender next year. Thompson plays Nancy Stokes, a 60-something widowed woman who has never had an orgasm and just doesn’t know what good sex is. Determined to finally do something about this dilemma, Nancy’s plan is to rent a hotel room, and hire a young sex worker who calls himself Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack). The film takes place entirely inside that hotel room as Leo and Nancy get to know each other both emotionally and physically. It's a weakly written two-hander that has Thompson strenuously overacting in a film more interested in being topical and “sex positive” than engaging and original. [D]