Writer-director-star Cooper Raiff’s smart and charming and delightfully offbeat “Cha Cha Real Smooth” is a movie very much of the present day, but there’s something almost nostalgic about the self-consciously indie material in that it reminded me of somewhat similarly themed gems such as “Rushmore” (1998), “Igby Goes Down” (1998) and “Tadpole” (1998) — and all of these films are generational descendants of “The Graduate” (1966).
The protagonists of the former three films were eccentric, mildly rebellious, anxious but empathetic teenagers engaging in possibly romantic entanglements with older women, while Raiff’s Andrew is, like Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock, a recent college grad who is eccentric, mildly rebellious, anxious but empathetic and has a crush on an older woman.
