After boosting her indie movie cred withThe Peanut Butter FalconandOur Friend,Dakota Johnsonhas signed on to star oppositeCooper Raiffin theShithousedirector’s new movieCha Cha Real Smooth.
Raiff wrote the script, which will see him play a bar/bat mitzvah DJ, as in, a guy who gets people dancing at the party, not spinning records while wearing headphones. At some point, he strikes up a friendship with a young mother (Johnson) and her autistic daughter.
Picturestart and Endeavor Content will co-finance the project, which Raiff will produce with Johnson and her TeaTime Pictures partnerRo Donnelly.Jessica SwitchandJulia Hammerwill oversee the project for Picturestart, which also financed and produced Johnson’s upcoming movieAm I OK?that just wrapped production this past week.
Raiff has been riding a wave of industry buzz after his debut filmShithousewon the Grand Jury Prize at last year’s canceled SXSW festival. As a result, there were multiple bidders forCha Cha Real Smooth, which like theDJ Caspersong"Cha Cha Slide,“apparently had everybody (who read the script) clapping their hands. The director is now slated to start production on his new movie this summer, and Endeavor Content will handle global sales with ICM Partners, which represents Raiff along with managerAdam Kershof Fusion Entertainment.
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Shithousewas one of those movies that everyone told me to watch, and then I threw it on late one night, which was a terrible call on my part, but not the way you’re probably thinking. It’s one of those movies you really have to be in the right mood for, and because it was so late, the movie felt a bit too slow for me, so I turned it off after 30 minutes. By the time I tried to finish it the following week (when the mood was finally right), my screener link had expired. I was shit(house) out of luck. Serves me right!
While Idointend to finish watchingShithouse, I must say that the premise forCha Cha Real Smoothis much more up my alley. For starters, I had an epic bar mitzvah and a big part of its success was the evening’s entertainment – Johnny K of Pure Energy Entertainment, who made crass jokes that my friends and I loved when he was out of earshot of my parents, and brought along some, um, well-endowed dancers who really made our family photo album pop. Of course, it’s not an easy job to coax 100+ people onto the dance floor so the bar mitzvah boy or girl’s parents can feel like they’re getting their money’s worth, and I look forward to seeing the somewhat gawky and awkward Raiff try.
Maybe Johnson will fall for Raiff after he gets her daughter dancing or goes out of his way to get her involved with the other kids at the party. That would be a sweet set-up, and there was a certain sweetness to the first half-hour ofShithousethat I admired, so who knows, maybe this movie becomes the nextWedding Singer?
Johnson recently starred inThe High Note, and she’ll soon be seen inMaggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debutThe Lost Daughter. She also makes a bold cameo alongsideAnnie Clark, aka St. Vincent, inThe Nowhere Inn, which IFC Films just picked up more than a year after its debut at the Sundance Film Festival.
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