A Real Pain (2024) Review!!

Synopsis – Mismatched cousins David and Benji reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the odd-couple’s old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.

My Take – Having gained recognition for his roles in Zombieland (2009) and Oscar nominated The Social Network (2010), and then notoriety for his portrayal of Lex Luthor in the maligned DCEU feature, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), in his nearly two-decade acting career, Jesse Eisenberg has established himself as a distinct performer who shines particularly in small-stakes character-driven dramas.

Even his first feature as a writer-director, When You Finish Saving the World (2022), seemed completely in his arena: a decent wincing but humorous tale of complicated bonding peppered with awkwardness. Surprisingly, his sophomore effort as a writer-director sets out to be something unconventional.

The film, which counts Emma Stone and her husband SNL writer Dave McCary as producers, is structured as a philosophical inquiry into how to measure or feel universal human pain in front of one’s individual problems, and what to do with one’s legacy of suffering and survival.

The result is a funny, solemn and emotional road trip that hinges primarily on its two superb central performances, Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin, who won a Golden Globe for the role yesterday.

Sure, at times it is a little pretentious and often dry, yet, it works as a tender, harmless and funny insight into family jealousies and our relationship to the past.

The story follows two 30-something Jewish cousins, David (Jesse Eisenberg), an anxious New York settled family man who sells digital ads for a living, and Benji (Kieran Culkin), an impishly charming idler who is still figuring things out for himself. Their grandmother has recently died and since she left them some money, in a way to honor her, the two are on journey to her ancestral home in Poland, from which she escaped to survive the Holocaust and built a new life.

Joining a small, six-person Holocaust heritage tour led by James (Will Sharpe), an English academic immersed in the Jewish experience, even though he is not Jewish, the once-close cousins, now estranged, must navigate their complicated relationship while confronting their family’s painful history and their own cultural identities.

Filmed on location in Poland, the film has an alluring, unforced sense of place as director Eisenberg deftly switches from wry comedy to something more serious and heartfelt. Here, as a filmmaker Eisenberg is handling some strong subject matter, and I believe he does it well.

Though, the struggle faced by Culkin’s obnoxious Benji is obvious, it also encompasses a broader investigation into how historical pain weights up against more modern conceptions of hurt, and how our contemporary experiences cannot be compared to the enormity of traumas felt by previous generations.

He even serves up some delicious Benji-led set-pieces, like co-opting the group in a playful photo op before a Polish war memorial, storming out of a first-class train carriage because it feels at odds with the Jewish experience of trains during World War II, or berating British tour guide James for dropping too many factoids, yet it always rings human and true.

And cinematographer Michal Dymek captures Warsaw, Lublin and the Polish countryside with a curious eye, and not always glamorously.

However, the best part of the film is the trip to the concentration camp. The choice of simply walking through the camp in silence, save for a few emotional reactions and minor details from their tour guide, sets a sense of a somber feeling and empathy. Something that continues even after they return to the hotel, and the film lets us sit with the exhaustion inherent in an experience like this one.

Performances wise, Jesse Eisenberg perfectly plays a role that he seems made for – an uptight, nervous and dedicated family man who always wants to do the right thing. Opposite him is Kieran Culkin who plays the polar opposite of Eisenberg, and makes Benji a larger-than-life live wire but keeps him real, revealing a vulnerability and melancholy that speaks to a different kind of pain. Together, they deliver a brilliant portrayal of shifting family dynamics in all its complicated, relatable messiness.

Sadly, the supporting cast which comprises of Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy, Daniel Oreskes and Ellora Torchia are underutilized. On the whole, ‘A Real Pain‘ is a solid, funny and poignant comedy drama that takes us on a thought-provoking, though imperfect, journey.