"Cha Cha Real Smooth" and the power of empathy

Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022) was written and directed by Cooper Raiff, cinematography by Cristina Dunlap, music by Este Haim and Chris Stracey, starring Cooper Raiff, Dakota Johnson, Evan Assante, Vanessa Burghardt. And it’s the first Teatime Pictures production ! We've been waiting for this !! ♡

The elbow-holding romantic gesture did it for me. It's one of those moments - both cringe and cute - like when Ashton Kutcher brings Natalie Portman carrots instead of flowers (in No Strings Attached, 2011), but better. It's both genuinely awkward and deeply touching, like many things in this movie, and I think it works only because it comes from a place of honesty. Somehow I believe that Cooper Raiff puts himself, and his sense of humor, in his films to the point you're basically taking a peak inside of his mind : I can see him writing the "party starter" commercial spot in the movie and laughing to himself, and I think that's the only way to do it. It's so spontaneous... This film, and his previous one as well, feel like opening a page in his diary, with a few touches of creativity. At first, I got the feeling that Cha Cha Real Smooth was a sort of continuation of Sh*thouse, in the way that now the boy is out of college but the anxiety is still there, he found a way to confront his fears but there's a lot that he has to figure out still. Except this character is totally diffent : sure he's nerdy, slightly weird and a bit of a loner (his best friend is literally his brother), but he's also confident, extroverted and more adultly playful. Andrew seems to follow his own separate and unique journey, in a universe where probably previous and future Raiff's characters will all live melancholically and happily ever after.

A few notes. This film looks so normal - indie without looking inaccessible -, it's got the kind of photography you wouldn't stop to take a better look at while zapping on tv, which isn't meant to be an insult. Like everything in this film, it feels like an everyday kind of moment : you come across the struggle of a young mother with an autistic child, and you find a complexity that feels genuine and natural, without being forced or overly emphasized, it’s just a part of life for these characters, as it is in real life. They keep moving around it organically to whom they are, it’s not the main focus nor an irrelevant subtext / last minute addition. It fits because life itself finds a way to make different situation fit together.

The story is composed by a lot of puzzle pieces that find one another at different times, and it’s effortless and it’s captivating and it’s comforting and moving and heartfelt and kind and thoughtful. It's never too focused on one matter, it approaches life as it comes. It’s fun, it’s therapeutic, it’s non judgemental and intimately reassuring.

The way the “love story” is shown feels intimate yet respectful, it’s never openly aestheticised nor does it feel fully inappropriate, it’s as confusing for us as it is for the characters, and the fact that it’s not the main plot point makes the story so much more interesting, and original, and clever.

The characters are well rounded and layered and so not stereotypical. Every plot twist feels earned.

The storytelling style makes it feel relaxed and playful without loosing an aura of depth and emotion and even drama. It’s as if the inner world was meeting the outer one, the lines between reality and imagination are slightly blurred.

First lesson : Empathy is cool

There’s a rule in cinema that is “never say what you can show”, yet this movie teaches us that there are ways to say things that are even better than showing them. It guides us through complex emotions and it teaches us to see beyond the surface, to really listen.

Prejudice is a really fun thing to play with. We have such a precise point of view that we look at things from, in this film : Andrew is a very opinionated person and he’s empathetic, kind, generous, but also self-centered and young. And as much as he feels like an un-stereotypical boy trying to find himself in a messy world, he also incarnates some of the traits that most stereotypical men share : the drive to help the girl, the belief that only you can save her, and therefore that she needs you to save her.

A single mother with an autistic child is the perfect candidate for this type of help : “is it difficult?” Andrew asks her during their first conversation.

But then we discover that there is a man in her life, and in order to validate the main character’s experience and feelings this man needs to be a bad guy, a drunk one, a violent one, a man who doesn't respect the woman, who doesn't let her be whom she truly is.

Andrew is presumptuous but most of all he's immature : the whole idea of Domino is filtered by his point of view, by his expectations and desires, by his fears, there is little to no openness to seeing who she really is. Until the very end when Andrew is faced with rejection and realises that it never was about him. The main character of Domino's life isn't him, nor her fiancée, and not even her daughter : it's herself. And empathy is the only way to recognise that.

Second lesson : Womanhood is a lot of different things

In this film we get to see a kind of womanhood that isn't pinned down to only one definition, but is multi-faced and complex and layered, even contradictory.

Domino is such a vibrant character, unsettling and confusing to both others and herself.

She’s fragile and strong, she’s a mother and a woman, desirable, even sexy, provocative, and also worth your respect.

She wants to feel safe but also to break the rules, she wants stability and freedom, she’s brave and scared, she loves her daughter and she feels lonely, she wants to escape and yet she wants a cage to be kept in.

She invites Andrew him and then rejects him, she’s misleading and entrancing. Filtered by Andrew's point of view, she feels unreal, almost goddess-like. But it's an illusion, it's a male fantasy.

There’s this very dumb movie called Alfie (2004) starring Jude Law and there’s a scene where he notices a crack in a perfectly beautiful statue, and he describes this as a damage that makes him realise that the whole statue was broken, garbage ["Aphrodite, something like that. Beautiful, she was. Perfect female form. Chiselled features. Exquisite. I stood in awe of her. Finally, the teacher calls us all over, and I'm walking past it, and on the way I notice, in the side of this Greek goddess, all these cracks, chips, imperfections. Ruined her for me. Well, that's Nikki. A beautiful sculpture... damaged... in a way you don't notice till you get too close."]. I think this movie shows us that perfection doesn't mean being flaw-less, or having no cracks, cause that simply doesn't exist. This idea that beauty means having perfect skin, no stretch marks, no scars is unrealistic and honestly just bullshit. They feed us this image and we spend our lives trying to fit the part, while we should just fucking breathe and be ourselves and love ourselves not despite but because of our flaws and exceptions and "cracks".

I feel like the bathroom scene in the first half of the movie is the moment we see the crack in Domino but it’s not a damage, it’s not something that changes the essence of that character, we don't pity Domino : we actually just feel like now we know her, like she's not one-dimensional anymore, like she has depth and feelings and is a real person. Domino is both a victim of something painful and difficult, and a heroine, holding the power, able to get back up and who is in control of her life.

It’s beautiful to see her through Andrew’s eyes while his judgement slowly breaks down, towards the end, his made-up portrait of her decomposes and finally he sees her for the first time for whom she truly is : a person, not something to fix, not someone to save, not a way for him to leave his problems behind, or to fill a whole, not even just a “soulmate”; but a real person with a real life, with desires and fears of their own.

thanks for reading, see you soon ♡