Following his adaptation of Under Milk Wood, Kevin Allen – the man behind Welsh phenomenon Twin Town – returns to Wales with bizarre comedy La Cha Cha. Set in an off-grid retirement community for a disenfranchised bunch of eccentrics hoping to spend some enjoyable autumn years, this supremely low budget film, shot on iPhones and filmed during lockdown in 2021, is a curate’s egg.
Solti Buttering (Liam Hourican) is on holiday looking for somewhere to scatter his grandad’s ashes and ends up at the camp where he becomes embroiled in a plot that involves drug dealing, corporate takeover and suicide as well as frequent unwanted nudity. Inexplicably, the young Ruby and Sonny Ashbourne Serkis (aka Andy Serkis’ children) play the sort-of owners of the campsite, struggling to keep it open with the threat of Dougray Scott’s sleazy businessman’s designs on turning it into a resort.
Inevitably, the mismatched elders have to band together to try and save their community and the prescription drug trade they preside over. The film lurches from suicides to sentiment, Welsh hymn singing, mute cameos from Alun Wyn Jones and some rather forced humour amidst the nudists, emerging as a muddled affair, as murky as the waters of the lake the campsite surrounds.
Filmed on location in the Gower, director Allen does have a Twin Town reunion of sorts: many of its original cast appear, albeit briefly. Rhys and Llyr Ifans have blink-and-you’ll-miss-‘em cameos as odd drug dealers with a nude tattooed bodyguard; the aforementioned Dougray Scott smarms for a handful of scenes. Will Thomas is a camp paintballer, Keith Allen growls as a member of the displaced community and other Welsh comedy stalwarts Boyd Clack, Melanie Walters and Di Botcher do their best with the thin material they’re given. Alfie Allen shows up with an impenetrable accent and is soon dispensed with.
Shot with the idea of giving student trainees experience, La Cha Cha may have noble intentions but is often a testing watch. Much of its humour falls flat, there is incessant organ music, and character motivation and plot is scattershot. Ultimately, the film fails to engage outside of its lockdown bubble, dancing to its own very specific tune.
Dir: Kevin Allen (15, 90 mins)
La Cha Cha is released via digital platforms on Mon 25 Mar
words KEIRON SELF
