‘A Real Pain’ Review

In ‘A Real Pain’, Jesse Eisenberg’s second directorial effort, nothing comes clean or easy. We open with Benji (Kieran Culkin), waiting patiently in an airport as his cousin David (Jesse Eisenberg) is scrambling to get to the airport himself. In montage, David calls his cousin repeatedly with no answer, leaving messages throughout his commute, voicing his own anxieties into the void. David finally arrives to the airport and is surprised to see Benji already there. When David mentions all the messages he left, Benji acts blissfully unaware, saying he must have missed them, and moves right on. Everything we need to know about just how different these two people are is established in these opening scenes.

The two cousins are on their way to Poland, for a weeklong heritage tour in honor of their recently deceased grandmother. Their tour group includes an older couple looking to explore their Polish ancestry, a recently divorced woman looking to experience an adventure, and a Rwandan genocide survivor who found a home in the Jewish faith and is looking to better understand their history. All of this is led by an Oxford educated guide named James, who isn’t Jewish but is fascinated by Polish history and a people who lived, loved and suffered for their faith. None of the members of the tour group are made into one note sitcom characters, they are all fully realized and sensitively portrayed. While there are moments of bonding and awkwardness within the group dynamics, the central drama of the movie is between the two cousins.

Kieran Culkin’s Benji is a live wire, oscillating between silly, playful, carefree fun and impassioned, angry outbursts moment to moment. In one scene, he shamelessly starts posing with a war memorial statue, pretending to be a soldier himself. Though David questions whether this is in good taste, Benji insists it’s all in fun, and eventually the rest of the tour group jumps in for silly photos. But the next day on a train to their next stop, Benji lashes out at the rest of the tour group, bemoaning the fact that the group isn’t taking the tour and its history seriously enough, that to indulge in a comfortable train ride when their ancestors would have dreaded such a train trip is heartless cruelty. Benji is a walking contradiction, who doesn’t see himself as such. He feels his feelings in any given moment, voices these feelings, and then moves quickly on to the next thing, forgetting how he acted and felt the moment before. It can be tiring to watch, but Culkin’s performance imbues the character with an empathy and deep sadness that is gripping even in the moments the character is at his most exhausting.

Eisenberg’s David, on the other hand, seems almost afraid of emotion and is always quick to offer an apology. He watches his cousin with a mixture of jealousy and annoyance: amazed at his ability to connect with other people and angry at his inability to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself.

The transition from acting to directing can prove difficult, for even the most insightful performers, but Eisenberg proves adept. Like most other actors who succeed in this role, Eisenberg focuses first and foremost on the performances, on the characters. There are no directorial flourishes, no unique framing, blocking, or editing that elevates the source material. Every shot, edit and musical choice is to give space for the performers to best deliver the complicated, messy truths of their characters. And with this goal, Eisenberg succeeds without question.

‘A Real Pain’ elegantly side steps what could be any number of cliches. This is a true slice of life, with all the mess and anticlimax that entails. In one scene, as David vents to the tour group about his cousin, I kept expecting Benji to appear behind him and overhear his brother’s thoughts, which would inevitably lead to conflict. But no, this film doesn’t take that bait. Its conflict happens more organically, so that when the cousins fight, it feels sudden but inevitable. As the film ends, the audience is left to wonder where these characters go from here. We want to believe in the happy ending, but much like with Benji, we’ve seen too many emotional swings to believe life could be so simple.

A Real Pain
Rated R for language throughout and some drug use.
Running Time: 1 hour and 30 minutes

Director Jesse Eisenberg
Writers Jesse Eisenberg
Stars Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiwan, Liza Sadovy, Daniel Oreskes
Rating R
Running Time 90 Minutes
Genres Comedy, Drama