A Real Pain (2024) review

Dir. Jesse Eisenberg

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★½

David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kiernan Culkin) are cousins, who grew up like brothers. David has since gone on to start a family, underscored by the recent arrival of a beautiful baby girl. Benji has been more adrift than ever following the death of their beloved grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. The two book a trip to Poland to learn more about the Holocaust’s far-reaching impact on the country, while also dropping by their grandmother’s hometown.

The two early-thirtysomethings join a tour group led by an engaged Brit named James (Will Sharpe). Among them is a recently divorced woman (Jennifer Grey), a Rwandan genocide survivor (Kurt Egiywan), and an elderly Jewish couple (Liza Sadovy and Daniel Oreskes). This is not a tour defined by gallivanting and traditional sightseeing. This is a tour where individuals are confronted with the pain and suffering several groups of people that is still very affecting. Each handle it in different ways.

Such is Jesse Eisenberg’s sophomore feature A Real Pain, a delicate and moving drama that keeps its humanist perspective in tact from the opening scene all the way down to the closing shot. Here’s a film that does many of the little things right to the point where, in conjunction with the lovely performances, the entire work finds its way into your heart and instills its impact with ease yet power.

For one, a lesser movie might’ve tried to make David and Benji the saviors of each individual member of the tour group. Instead, there’s no resolve for their own personal problems. Frankly, we don’t get to know the ins and outs of everybody, and that’s not a fault of Eisenberg’s script. Much of what is discovered about their fellow tourists is by Benji, off-screen, and he’s not one to air out people’s dirty laundry in private conversation with David.

David and Benji are textbook cases of oil-and-water; two vastly different human beings who quietly envy qualities in their counterpart, while knowing they can never emulate them. Where David is reserved and family-minded, Benji is extroverted and emotionally raw. He cycles through various feelings, sometimes on a dime, but it’s a massive credit to Culkin that nothing about Benji feels inauthentic. His sad eyes, twitchy body language, and ability to get to the heart of a person mere minutes into casual conversation all feel real.

Similar to the way Eisenberg’s script doesn’t create problems for his duo magically to solve, it also doesn’t try to make Benji a pitiable character. However, he’s justified when he has an abrupt outburst at James over his tendencies to spew facts instead of letting moments on the guided tour breathe. He also has a hard time accepting the posh train ride the group takes to the concentration camps, feeling in-the-wrong being pampered and privileged whilst en route to a site where hundreds of thousands so cruelly lost their lives.

Eisenberg’s lovely character work is harmonious with the pointed themes A Real Pain explores. What are the limits of our own personal empathy? Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes only goes so far, or at least until you recognize the shoes you’re already wearing take you to an entirely different place, and you keep walking in that direction. Benji can be overbearing and a little awkward, but he means well and has real reason to question these things while being confronted with the sins of the past. This is the first time in a blue moon where, while watching a movie, I found myself embracing each direction and pivot without question nor hesitation, right down to David’s monologue to the tour group about why he loves yet hates Benji all in the same, complicated breath. There’s more contemplative human emotion and genuine compassion in the sub-90 minute A Real Pain than there are epics almost triple its length. If you want a film even remotely comparable, press play on Emilio Estevez’s The Way. The two would make a very intriguing, affecting double feature.

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy, and Daniel Oreskes. Directed by: Jesse Eisenberg.