‘Cha Cha Real Smooth': Apple Wants Sundance-Winning Film to Be an Oscar Contender [Review]

Will Oscar again fall for another feel-good Apple TV weepie?

Apple made the biggest deal out of Sundance 2022 by buying Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth” for a whopping $15 million. I somewhat fell for Raiff’s sweetly romantic film when I saw it at the fest this past January. If you remember, Apple also had the biggest deal of Sundance 2021 with the $25 million spent on eventual Best Picture winner “CODA.”

Apple are giving ‘Cha Cha’ the same treatment as their recent Best Picture winner. In fact, Raiff’s film is following the same blueprint as “CODA.” Both films won the coveted Sundance audience award, and both were given a simultaneous summer release date in theaters and on Apple TV.

Apple has high hopes for the film, which has garnered fairly strong reviews so far, a 76 on Metacritic and 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. This is just the Raiff’s second feature, after winning the top prize at SXSW in 2020 for “Shithouse”. He’s just 22 year of age.

“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 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 ooze with romantic yearning.

“Cha Cha Real Smooth” turns out to be a pleasant watch 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 these days. 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 the mainstream purports it to be. [B/B+]