‘Cha Cha Real Smooth’ finds heart in mom-daughter connection
By LINDSEY BAHR
AP Film Writer
The heart of Cooper Raiff’s sophomore feature “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” available now on Apple TV+, isn’t his post-grad character who is living back at his mother’s suburban home, working a dead end job and wondering what to do with his life. It’s the mother and daughter he meets while attending a bar mitzvah with his little brother. Dakota Johnson plays the young mother with an autistic teenage daughter. Raiff was inspired to write this mother-daughter relationship because of his own sister, who is disabled. A nationwide casting search led them to Vanessa Burghardt, an autistic actor who is making her film debut.
