It didn’t kill “CODA” last year, so why would Cha Cha Real Smooth’s silent release this weekend on Apple TV be any different? Apple made the biggest deal of Sundance 2022, buying Raiff’s film for a whopping $15 million.
The Sundance winner is being give similar treatment from Apple as last year’s eventual Best Picture winner “CODA.” Will it work? I’m not too sure about that. “CODA” had an inclusive pull to it (deaf actors, female director, underdog story). What does ‘Cha Cha’ have? I guess the fact that its director, Cooper Raiff, is just 25 is quite the story. Dakota Johnson also gives the best performance of her career in this sweetly rendered movie.
“CODA” has a 74 on Metacritic and was 94% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. “Cha Cha Real Smooth” has a 72 and an 87%. Similar numbers, but I don’t really buy the punditry that Raiff’s film will be an Oscar contender. 2022 is not 2021. There are way more awards-baity films being released this year.
I somewhat fell for Raiff’s sweetly romantic film when I saw it, giving it a B grade, saying “Raiff’s smartly written screenplay 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.”
“Hope,” Na’s first film in ten years — his last one being the exemplary “The Wailing” —is a gloriously messy, blood-soaked sci-fi epic that may become a cult classic despite—or because of—its polarizing nature.