By George & Josh Bate
Filmmaking is a deeply personal art form. While often a medium artists use to develop heightened stories, others use movies to tell tales that run closely to their actual experiences and steep them in incredible emotional sentiment. The latter is what writer, director, and star Jesse Eisenberg does with his new film A Real Pain, a road buddy dramedy with wit, sharp performances, and a powerful emotional throughline that will resonate universally.
A Real Pain follows cousins David (played by Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (played by Kieran Culkin), who reunite to go on a tour through Poland to visit important landmarks of their Jewish ancestry and honor their recently deceased grandmother. In classic buddy comedy fashion, the cousin duo are mismatched. Eisenberg plays the straight man, an accomplished family man with a young son. Meanwhile, Culkin plays the more eccentric and unstable funny man, who leads his life with less structure and direction than his counterpart. The two go on a journey that tests the limits of their strained relationship and has them face the legacy of their family’s tragic history.
To define A Real Pain as a buddy, road movie seems a bit reductive given the thematic weight the film holds, although this is certainly not a mischaracterization. The film begins with cousins David and Benji reuniting after sometime at the airport to journey from New York to Poland. It is clear almost immediately that the two, despite their shared family background, have markedly different personalities, with the brazen and extraverted behaviors of Culkin’s character shocking and troubling Eisenberg’s more flat and socially conventional character in equal measure. Eisenberg’s sharp dialogue and Culkin’s performance as an overtly jovial person suffering with an underlying sadness create a purposefully uncomfortable viewing experience at times. The audience, naturally, finds comfort in the presence of Eisenberg’s David, someone seemingly far more suited for the kind of small talk that would occur on a trip like the cousins are on. By association, David experiences embarrassment, shame, and frustration at his cousin Benji’s behavior, all of which are emotions the audience feels in response to the unpredictable and, at times, inappropriate actions of the character. There is a certain immersive quality about this, an almost The Office-like cringe-worthiness that transcends the screen and seeps into your very being as you watch Culkin’s Benji character do and say all sorts of off-color things as Eisenberg’s David retreats in response.
In doing so, Eisenberg successfully and firmly positions the audience in his character’s shoes by having viewers experience the immense variety of emotions Benji elicits in people for themselves. The man that has a meltdown on a train about the symbolism of sitting in first class as a Jew in Poland is also the same person who brings the different members of the tour group together with his brilliant levity and friendliness. Culkin embodies Benji with a magnetism and unique intimacy, much like the ‘love them one second, loathe them the next’ kind of energy John Candy’s Del Griffith evokes in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. But his Benji is also akin to Jack Nicholson’s Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, bringing out an inner joy to a group of people through his rebellious attitude.
Together, the two cousins take part in a tour through real-life locations in Poland, led by tour guide James (played by The White Lotus’ Will Sharpe). Very quickly, the different members of this tour group become a certain family unit, trading jokes and offering emotional support during an, at times, understandably difficult tour. Sharpe plays James a non-Jewish academic, whose interests in Jewish history have led him to conduct tours of important Jewish sites in Poland. What could easily be a throwaway character is given surprising depth by Eisenberg’s script and Sharpe’s performance. James would be described by some as a philosemite, someone who identifies with Jewish culture despite not actually coming from Jewish culture. Behind this characterization are innocent intentions, which are unexpectedly confronted when Benji takes issue with the way in which James is conducting the tour. It is ultimately a more peripheral plot thread in A Real Pain, but one that speaks to the multitude of emotional layers the film has embedded throughout.
The tour itself encompasses much of the film and is depicted in a way that cements a serene, tranquil tone for the film. Eisenberg shoots the various landmarks beautifully, deciding to let them speak for themselves rather than covering them in distracting cinematography and filmmaking. The areas the tour group visit are largely unpopulated, which, coupled with various periods of contemplative silence throughout the tour, give A Real Pain a reflective quality that allows the audience to experience these landmarks and points of Jewish history with the characters. Accompanying the tour is a score from Polish composer Frederic Chopin, which, unlike a more traditional score that uses music to depict characters’ emotions, serves more so as soothing and reflective background sounds to go along with the tour (much like one would hear in a documentary about such a tour).
The tour doesn’t always go to plan, and this is often due to interruptions from Culkin’s Benji character. Over time, the erraticism of Benji’s actions is given important context as Eisenberg explores how humor and emotional pain often coexist. Benji harbors grief, depression, and existential crises, which he masks with humor and an unusual personality. As the film progresses, these different sides of Benji become apparent and move it more from comedic territory to dramatic territory.
Eisenberg and Culkin play cousins, who were essentially as close as brothers earlier in their life. Their different paths into adulthood drove the two apart, something that will likely resonate with viewers who have grown apart from friends or family they were once so close to. Eisenberg plays with this theme of rekindling an old relationship with extraordinary effect. Even though the film is centered around two characters exploring their Jewish history, it features a far more universally resonant throughline about lost bonds, leaving people behind, the difficulties that come with growing up, and the deep sadness of grief. Eisenberg achieves what few filmmakers do in this regard, in making an extremely specific and singular story one that holds far broader relevance.
With the emotional bond between Eisenberg’s David and Culkin’s Benji at the heart of such a powerful film, the two actors deliver some of the best performances of their career. Although Culkin’s portrayal of Benji sometimes feels a tad too much like his turn as Roman Roy in Succession, the actor overwhelmingly excels in driving the film forward and adding a much-needed injection of humor to a harrowing and emotional tour. More than anything though, Culkin depicts internal struggle, mental distress, and deep-rooted sadness so genuinely in his performance, masterfully acting at the intersection of humor and pain. The man who effortlessly charms a TSA agent is also the same man who is grieving deeply for his grandmother, and that combination works because of the character Culkin crafts here.
Eisenberg, meanwhile, may not deliver anything we haven’t seen from the actor before, but he is certainly effective as the dramedy’s straight man and audience’s point-of-view. Eisenberg mirrors the likely emotions of the film’s audience in response to Benji’s behavior, fluctuating between annoyance and joy before arriving on a more solemn note. A few times in the film, Eisenberg’s character raises points about what true pain is, dismissing his struggles with OCD when in the context of a site of genocide. Largely through David, A Real Pain deftly explores the concept of pain and questions about the legitimacy of our personal struggles while others harbor more overt traumas and difficulties.
The brisk 90 minute road comedy concludes on a somewhat disappointing and ambiguous note, though. The film wraps things up with an ending that doesn’t quite cap off the themes explored, almost as if it needed just a bit more substance to carry it over the finish line. None of this is detrimental enough to worsen perceptions of the preceding film, but it does mean that A Real Pain ends on a disquieting note. Ultimately, however, this may be Eisenberg’s intention – to leave the audience feeling solemn or questioning by the end. Regardless, one can’t help but want to see what is next for them after experiencing such a journey, which speaks to how strongly developed these characters are.
VERDICT: 8/10
A Real Pain is a road-trip buddy dramedy that will take you on an emotional journey through the eyes of two mismatched, reuniting cousins. Set in the context of a beautiful and tranquil background and tone, the film from writer/director Jesse Eisenberg immerses the audience into what it is like to be friends with someone who fluctuates from being extremely likable to intolerable and frustrating. This dichotomy comes in a film that explores the intersection of humor and emotional pain with a depth few films achieve, largely through a resounding performance from Kieran Culkin worthy of awards attention. A somewhat disappointing ending is offset by an introspective journey for the characters and the audience that speaks to what it is like to grow apart from someone, the difficulties of grief, and confronting the tragedies of our families’ pasts. Perhaps most admirably, Jesse Eisenberg excels with A Real Pain in crafting an intimate story so singular to his own life experiences, but simultaneously so universal in the emotions it explores and themes it taps into.