A Real Pain Review

A Real Pain is a comedy-drama that marks Jesse Eisenberg’s second film as a writer/director and follows a pair of cousins as they travel around Poland.

David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) are cousins who travel to Poland on a personal pilgrim to honour their deceased grandmother and Polish-Jewish heritage. They go on an organised tour to some important Jewish sites across the country as the cousins rekindle their relationship but also face up to personal issues.

A Real Pain was a multi-layered film due to the terrific screenplay.  Even the title of the film had a triple meaning. The first meaning was about the cousins’ relationship and one with a more dominating personality. The second meaning was the personal pains some of the characters have. Finally, there was a collective pain that Jewish people experienced as a community.

It had the quality of an Alexander Payne film due to the mix of comedy and drama, the chalk-and-cheese pairing going on a trip, and some personal discoveries on the way. This formula worked in Sideways, Nebraska, and The Holdovers. The difference with A Real Pain was that it was made from a younger perspective since David and Benji were younger characters.

The cousins had contrasting personalities. David was introverted and socially awkward whilst Benji was a confident people person. Their dynamic had complications. Benji was able to dominate David with small actions, like having a shower before David despite having said he wanted one. Benji rubbed salt in the wound by taking David’s phone.  While on the outside Benji was outgoing and befriended everyone, he was hiding a lot of personal pain. Occasionally, Benji stated his pain, by saying things haven’t been going well and when Benji drank his mood turned dark. Benji said he envied David since David was married with a child and had a well-paid job, whilst Benji was stuck in a small town. This relationship revealed a lot of David and Benji’s personal issues and struggles.

Eisenberg and Culkin were playing to type. Eisenberg was a neurotic nerd and Culkin was a laidback fella. The screenplay and actors gave them more depth than these base characteristics. The acting pair did work well together, from Culkin’s Benji antics tormenting his cousin to Benji breaking down David’s wall through mischief and weed.

The Jewish experience was also explored in the film. The tour group was visiting important Jewish sites from the heights of Lublin, a university town that was home to Jewish intellectualism, and the lows of Majdanek Concentration Camp. A Real Pain is considered an American-Polish co-production and the film did highlight some major sites and towns that look nice to visit, but due to the connection many characters had to the towns, the film did not feel like a tourism advert for Poland. A Real Pain was a comedy and there was some dark humour like Benji referring to the group being Jews on a train in Poland being ironic, the visit to the concentration camp was treated with severity and weight.

The make-up of the tour was a reflection of different types of Jews in America. David and Benji were third-generation Jewish Americans, Marcia (Jennifer Grey) was a part of the second generation, whilst Mark (Daniel Oreskes) called himself a Mayflower Jew because his family arrived in America at the end of the 19^th Century and he was married to a non-Jew. Finally, there was Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan), a Rwandan refugee who converted to Judaism because he became attached to the Jewish community in Winnipeg. Leading the group was James (Will Sharpe), a non-Jew who developed an academic interest in Jewish culture.

A Real Pain was a funny, dialogue-driven film with great characters and had anchors of seriousness amidst the comedy.