Review: A Real Pain

Image courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

People are enigmas and when it comes to understanding another's pain, we're all basically tourists. How can it be, for instance, that someone could be a lonely person when they are the ones who command attention in a room when they enter it or be the first to make friends when they meet a group of strangers?

This is one of many questions in Jesse Eisenberg's sophomore directorial effort, "A Real Pain," which marks a major step forward for the actor's efforts behind the camera. The film, which runs a brisk 89 minutes, follows the story of two American Jews - David (Eisenberg) and his cousin, Benji (Kieran Culkin) - who are on a Holocaust tour of Poland to reconnect with the homeland of their recently deceased grandmother, Dory.

David is neurotic and lives in New York City with his wife and young child, while Benji - who considered Dory his best friend - is a man adrift, apparently living with his mother in Binghamton and seeming to have no current prospects on how to move his life forward.

While David takes great pains to be mannered among the small group with whom he and Benji are taking the tour - it consists of a good natured guide (Will Sharpe), a single woman (Jennifer Grey), a Rwandan genocide survivor who has converted to Judaism (Kurt Egiywan) and an aging couple (Daniel Oreskes and Liza Sadovy) - his cousin, on the other hand, has no problem pushing buttons.

And yet, the group responds to Benji, both his antics (getting them all to pose in front of a statue representing Poland's efforts in World War II) and gregariousness to his occasional outbursts (in one scene, he takes umbrage with the concept that a group of Jews are riding in posh first-class on a train when Polish Jews during the Holocaust rode trains to concentration camps in deplorable conditions; during another at a Polish graveyard, he critiques the guide's insistence on talking in a place where hushed respect is, perhaps, more appropriate).

For a movie about grief, "A Real Pain" is often riotously hilarious. From a comparison between two goodbyes involving the tour guide, Benji, and David to a scene in which Benji's over-exuberance in hearing about the Rwandan survivor's experiences makes one cringe, this film has some of the biggest laughs of any movie I've seen in the past few years.

But it's also a somber picture. The film's score fades away for a moment when the group tours a concentration camp as silence is the only noise befitting such an occasion. There are constant reminders of the horrific things that went on in the country that Benji and David are touring some decades before. There is also, of course, what appears to be the recent loss of the men's grandmother. 

And then, there's whatever is going on beneath the surface with the two cousins. There's a reveal late in the film in which David overshares with the group about Benji's struggles. It's a powerful scene because Eisenberg's David is so convincing in portraying how a person can love someone deeply - in this case, his cousin - while at the same time finding him as abrasive, off-putting, and frustrating as most others feel who come into contact with him.

Eisenberg has somewhat more of a challenge as the buttoned-up David, but "A Real Pain" belongs to Culkin, whose Benji is one of the more memorable film characters I've experienced in some time. He's the guy who never quite grew up and masks his pain with boisterous - and occasionally obnoxious - behavior. He's funny and charming, but can also turn on a dime and make things awkward when something rubs him the wrong way. It's one of the year's great performances.

And "A Real Pain" is one of the year's great movies. It's a lean film that uses its time wisely for great impact. It's loaded with laugh-out-loud moments but there's also a lot to unpack in this story of two people who care about each other but have drifted apart due to the events of their lives. There's something admirable about trying to put oneself in another's shoes and attempting to understand their pain but, as this film argues, this is something that none of us can fully comprehend.