The success of his second film at Sundance has positioned Cooper Raiff as one of the great promises of the so-called American indie cinema. Normal, ‘Dancing for life’ It adapts perfectly to the idiosyncrasy of this type of cinema in independent theory, but in practice it comes to us through distributors such as Apple in this case. What I love, and I guess those of us who tend to associate and confuse indie with alternative, like to think of as commercial indie. FoxSearchlight. Seen from the outside, from ignorance, anyone could think that one goes to Sundance in search of a contract rather than applause, even though the first usually arises as a result of the second. And from here to the Oscar or to directing Hollywood blockbusters, with a bit of luck. In the case of Raiff, who is undoubtedly where he wanted to be, he may be neither one nor the other, being one of those filmmakers who seem to want to make films to better understand themselves and the world around them. Raiff is only 25 years old. And in ‘Dancing for life’ It doesn’t sound like he’s telling us a story, but rather updating us on how his young life is going. As if, in addition to being spectators, we were friends, with the disinterested closeness and lightness of someone who has nothing to prove, but rather wants to talk. With the confidence and joy of someone who talks about what he knows with someone he knows. As if the film weren’t actually a fiction, but the remastering of an experience. A vision that fits organically with the kind, polite and well-intentioned sensitivity to what ‘Everything is going to be alright’ of a Raiff who talks and dances with that fucking smile that is as contagious as it is enviable from someone who is already happy with himself when he’s “twenty-something”. With all the time ahead, there is little that cannot be fixed in ‘Dancing for life’, an indie rom-com that while fitting into that model of cinema so Fox Searchlight rises above it, driven by a seemingly authentic humanity. A candy for adults who miss not being one and for whom life does not make their existence bitter, well, life is what we know it to be with a little maturity: That pastime built on simple and everyday moments of everyday life. Like the movie. Although it may fit within a pre-established model, ‘Dancing for life’ it shines because it feels like that something that, like its protagonist, does not seek to fit in but to be itself before others. And that from then on life is what it can be.
By Juan Pairet Iglesias
@Wanchopex
