Cha Cha Real Midlife Crisis
EVERYBODY CLAP YOUR HANDS!
Note: This newsletter contains spoilers for Cha Cha Real Smooth but, like, it isn’t a murder mystery or anything so honestly I don’t feel like it will impact your enjoyment of the film! But if you want to watch it first, consider this your warning.
I keep joking that I had a mid-life crisis on my birthday, and while I’m sort of joking, I’m also not. For starters, if I live to 72, this is mid-life. I hope I live longer, but that’s not a bad run! But also I’ve just been feeling very out-of-sorts and confused and down and like I need to make some changes. Maybe it’s the world around us, maybe it’s astrological, maybe it’s that transitioning into a new phase of my thirties after two years of a pandemic kinda freaked me out. Either way, my belief in myself and especially my work has never been lower. We’re talking basement level. It’s basically my self-esteem and David Bowie’s heart down there.
What’s a girl to do when facing a midlife crisis? Why, watch a coming of age story made by someone in their early twenties, of course! Preferably one where Dakota Johnson plays a hot young mom. We’re all coming of age all the time if you think about it, even if we didn’t just graduate from college (and thank God for that).
This is all the story of how I came to watch Cha Cha Real Smooth, which either has the best title in the world or the most ridiculous. I renewed our Apple TV+ specifically for this movie, which I hated to do because we have almost literally every streaming service except for Peacock which I will not get on principle. It had to be done, though. And I’m so glad I did because this movie? This movie! It has all that big-hearted, absolutely earnest, totally uncool sincerity of an early 2000s indie movie. I’d say they don’t make ‘em like this anymore, but they’re starting to make ‘em like this again. I mean, CODA won a dang Oscar. Please pray that this movie receives no awards attention so that it can continue to exist as something pleasant instead of intensely polarizing.
And, again, it also has Dakota Johnson (who, as you may remember, is a perfect angel) as a hot young mom. But more about that later.
Cooper Raiff wrote, directed, and starred in this film, and he plays a 22 year old college graduate named Andrew who, like many recent graduates (very much like me back when I graduated from college mumble mumble years ago), has no idea what to do with his life. He moves in with his family, which includes his mother, played by an always lovely Leslie Mann. She’s encouraging but also dealing with her own mental health issues (also, apparently, she paints? This wasn’t adequately explored if you ask me! I need to know more about Leslie Mann’s art career!). When accompanying his little brother to a bar mitzvah, he uses his powers of being a Friendly Young Dude to get everyone out on the dance floor, and all the moms are so impressed that they hire him to be a party starter at their kids’ parties.
At this party, he spots Dakota Johnson from across the room, and that’s perhaps the most realistic part of the entire movie: the idea that a man would fall instantly in love with Dakota Johnson upon seeing her once. She’s wearing this great combo of wide legged trousers with a vest and she looks amazing. Her name is (go get a drink and a snack, take a seat, relax and prepare yourself for this) Domino. It makes me think about how once my friend Lauren told about a Rufi Thorpe interview where Rufi quoted Ann Beattie as saying, essentially, that details are free. I do not think Ann Beattie was talking about naming a character Domino, but maybe she should’ve been, is all I’m saying. Domino is a perfect name for a character.
Andrew is best described as a Lloyd Dobler type: an idealistic young dude who has no plans and is also transfixed by a beautiful woman. He’s also, much like Lloyd Dobler, extremely cute, albeit in a different way. I don’t think this film has the depth of Say Anything, but that’s not a criticism. Andrew and Domino strike up a sexual-tension fueled friendship that’s largely motivated by Andrew wanting to help her. Help her with her autistic daughter. Help her with her depression. Help her with her relationship, which he sees as not being good enough for her. But is Andrew right? Does Domino actually need his help, or does helping her just make him feel good?
There’s a moment when Andrew essentially tries to make a romantic, grown up gesture, to storm up to Domino’s door at night and declare things and demand things, but it doesn’t work out the way it does in a romance. Essentially, he has the rug pulled out from under him as he realizes he’s way out of his depth, that he has no understanding of these adult relationships, that he’s still the little kid from the beginning of the movie who’s in love with an adult woman who will never be able to love him back. He’s Lloyd Dobler, so in his own world that he thinks the solutions to other people’s problems are simple, when they never really are.
It’s worth noting that this is classic Nothing Happens Cinema, which I sorely needed after being in the middle of Stranger Things, a show where stuff is always happening. Domino and Andrew share a moment in time that’s meaningful to both of them, and it helps Andrew, at least, make some decisions about his life. But neither one of them blows up their life for the other. They won’t know each other forever.
Cooper Raiff is currently 25. Most 25 year olds, it should be noted, do not make feature length films. I certainly didn’t. I was busy having a John Mayer style quarter life crisis and, as you may remember, working in a factory. It’s easy to hold his age against him, especially if you’re watching this film as someone who definitely isn’t 25 and thinking, “well, what does this dude know about single parenthood, or marriage, or anything?”
But I think his age is a feature, not a bug. So rarely do we get movies about young people that are firmly rooted in an actual young person’s perspective. You could say this movie is a bit solipsistic. We see these characters in terms of how they relate to Andrew, but what’s the alternative? 22 year olds are a bit solipsistic. The vast majority of movies I watch are made by older people—usually much older people, and I like that. Typically, I want that perspective and (barf) wisdom that comes from people who’ve lived a lot of life. This isn’t that, though. This is a story from someone who’s in the thick of it, a dispatch from our past to remind us what those feelings were like, but this time with drama and excitement and a great soundtrack and Dakota Johnson in a lovely wardrobe.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but the most important thing I learned in college was how to read a story based on what it is, not on what I want it to be. This is a viewpoint that serves me as I take in any kind of art or entertainment. Yeah, you could look at this movie and wish it was something else, wish it was about something more than one young dude figuring out what he wants to do with his life and how to move out of his mom’s place. But that’s what it is, and I loved that about it.
At the end of the film, everyone’s in a better place. Domino is married (do I wish that her husband was slightly more charismatic? I do. Don’t insult us by telling us that Dakota would marry this man!). Andrew has a better relationship with his family. And he’s working at a job where he helps people instead of inserting himself into people’s lives for free. It’s progress!
That’s what I love about coming of age movies, whether they’re about teenagers or twenty-somethings or people who are much older. They go through the confusion and the tears and the falling in love with Dakota Johnson and come out stronger and wiser and happier. Maybe there’s hope for all of us yet. I like the way that Cooper Raiff sums up his work in this GQ interview: “I try to get at a joyful sadness.” No better way to describe what I look for in a movie!
If you don’t have Apple TV+, I wholeheartedly recommend getting it for this movie (unfortunately they have VERY few other movies). I’m also in the midst of watching another Dakota film, Our Friend, which I just might end up talking about in another newsletter because I love it. I’ve inadvertently found myself in a Summer of Dakota and I’m not complaining! Maybe I’ll watch all of her movies, which will eventually place me into a situation in which I’ll need to watch another Marvel movie. They keep pulling me back in.
A little reminder that my next book is coming out in less than a month (August 2nd)! This newsletter will remain free but if you’d like to support me, please consider preordering Just Another Love Song from your preferred retailer. It really, really helps. Or order 15 copies and wallpaper your bathroom with the pages! Just an idea! If you’re near Columbus, you can also come see me at Gramercy books on August 9th.
Until next time, take it back now, y’all.