There’s a moment near the end of Cha Cha Real Smooth where the heart of this sweet coming-of-age movie grows three sizes in emotional maturity. A young man, not quite fully emotionally mature, facing a romantic and personal crisis, has an older man simply say to him, “thanks for looking out for my family”. Somehow that simple line snapped things into perspective for me and the main character. And I really loved that simplicity.

The film is about a twenty-two year guy who has just graduated college but finds himself working a dead-end job. A chance encounter at a bar mitzvah gives him the opportunity to become a party starter for future bar/bat mitvahs which is a bit of a career step for him. He runs into a slightly older woman and her mildly autistic daughter and strikes up a sweet friendship that might go deeper… it only it weren’t for her lawyer fiance.

This is just a story about a guy learning his place in the world. It’s sweet and charming and the relationships and dialog are wonderful. Especially between him and the daughter and between him and his younger brother. I adored all their scenes together. The will-they-won’t-they with Dakota Johnson is romantic but also a little problematic given their age differences and that fiance of hers.

But I like where the movie goes. It’s got a real emotional intellligence coupled with some fine dialog and story structure. I very much admired how smart the film actually was… but also how sweet, charming, and genuinely funny.

I did not like, however, that it was filmed like a horror movie. Almost every scene was dark and murky… and I was watching at home on Apple TV+ so this wasn’t an unfortunate experience with my local theater’s projection. Though it does make me wonder if films over the past few years haven’t grown darker in order to artificially create mood and atmosphere. I wonder if that along with maybe not the brightest bulbs is the source of my theatrical problems.

Anyway, that’s not in this film to solve and I enjoyed it despite my desire to step into frame and turn the lights on. It was well acted, it was thoughtful, and it was emotionally mature and smart. In some ways just another coming-of-age film, but in other ways a much wiser one than usual. I enjoyed it.

Score: 86