A Real Pain (2024)
Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland, The
Social Network) stars, writes, and directs in the odd-couple dramedy A
Real Pain.
Eisenberg plays David, a young New
Yorker who travels to Poland with his free-spirited cousin Benji (Kieran
Culkin) to visit the childhood home of their recently deceased grandmother.
They join a Jewish heritage tour with other visitors, including a few other
Americans and a Rwandan convert to Judaism.
David, a new father, is reserved and
play-it-safe. Benji is one of those people who can charm someone's socks off
one minute but then make the person want to strangle him the next. Benji's
holding on to some resentment because David hasn't contacted him much recently,
and David sees Benji as sometimes irresponsible and inconsiderate. Both men
also have to come to terms with their grief about their grandmother.
It's an actor's showcase, and while the
actors filling out the rest of the tour group get some nice moments, it's
mostly Eisenberg and Culkin's show. And they do a good job. Culkin especially
walks that fine line where the viewer can be annoyed with Benji while
understanding why people put up with his antics.
It also provides an interesting
travelogue of a country that Americans very rarely get to see in any film set
in the modern era. Seriously, try to think of a film shot in Poland that wasn't
set during World War II.
Eisenberg also wisely values economical
storytelling. In an era where movies often seem 15-30 minutes too long and
streaming/TV shows feature lots of padding, A Real Pain is a concise 90
minutes. More artists should take note.
