A Real Pain is a Touching Look at Cultural and Personal Pain
Jesse Eisenberg has written and directed an excellent film about the pains of heritage and the pains we carry ourselves.
A Real Pain, written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, is his second attempt at directing and writing a feature film. At Sundance in 2022, he premiered a film he directed titled When You Finish Saving the World which ended up getting a mixed reception at the festival. I know some of my mutuals at the time absolutely loathed the film. I didn’t hate it and found some catharsis to be found in it, but ultimately found experiencing the characters pure angst for ninety minutes was a little too taxing. When Eisenberg announced he would be premiering his next film at this years Sundance, people kinda scoffed at the idea thinking he would make another indulgent film about unlikable people. That is until the film premiered and people universally agreed, “oh this is a major improvement from his first film”. I agreed with the sentiment when I first saw this film this January, singing the praises of a sharp screenplay and an excellent performance by Kieran Culkin. However, as the year has gone on I haven’t thought about A Real Pain as much as other films that came out throughout the year. However, as I continued to read about the film as it got closer to release, I remembered how good the film was. I also wanted the chance to be able to watch the film free of distractions (I attended Sundance virtually this year, first watching the film on my TV at home) so I visited the theatre to watch A Real Pain and was floored by the film. It washed over me and I felt like as though I had watched it for the first time.
The film stars Jesse Eisenberg as David and Benji played by Kieran Culkin, avid and Benji are estranged cousins who used to be really close. That is, until Benji got a wife, kid and job that preoccupied his time. The two are brought back together when their grandmother dies and in her will leaves them money to reconnect and spend a week in Poland, where she grew up. There, they join a tour where they learn about Poland and the tragic atrocities of what happened there during The Holocaust - teaching them not only more about their family heritage but about their own pain they carry with them.
The film feels like a very personal exploration of pain through heritage from Jesse Eisenberg himself. The screenplay here is really evocative and I love how perfectly it handles tone. The film is the perfect definition of a dramedy. Aspects of the film are incredibly razor sharp and hilarious. Some of the line delivery here had me laughing out loud. However, when the film starts to explore the darker parts of the tour including exploring a concentration camp, the film becomes incredibly quiet and reflective. The tour guide towards the start of the tour likes to shout out facts about everything they come across and Benji points out to him that these are real people - not statistics. While what the tour guide is saying is informative, he needs to take a moment to reflect on the lives that were lived here. I think that specific moment is a way of Eisenberg telling the audience to do the same. He has written characters here that are witty and entertaining to follow, but, every person carries their own pain. The Jewish people living in Poland had to face major atrocities we cannot even comprehend and that’s not fiction - that’s real.
The film does a great job of illustrating just how real something as terrible as The Holocaust was. Knowing someone close to you grew up in this environment is harrowing enough - but this is just one layer of the film. It is also revealed to us in the movie that there are more complications and trauma surrounding Benji and David’s strained relationship. We discover that while Benji is incredibly personable, he is also a troubled individual who doesn’t feel like he’s living up to his full potential in life. This pain in his own life has sent him down a spiral he seems to not be able to escape. His outbursts are the result of him not being able to quite control his emotional state. In a poignant scene at a diner, David explains, “sometimes I hate him, but I love him and I want to be him”. David seems to be more put together than Benji - more stable in a stable job and functional family life. Beneath his eyes there is a pain as well though. He doesn’t have the strong feelings for life that Benji still has. He’s settled and because of this he isn’t as adventurous or as charming as Benji. He fades into obscurity as Benji is remembered for the rambunctious but insightful outbursts. His willingness to tell people exactly what he thinks and feels at all times. Benji has no filter and while that makes him obnoxious at times, it also makes him refreshingly honest which the people on this tour appreciate.
These are two of the most fully realized characters I’ve seen in a movie this year. Eisenberg’s script explores so much beyond the surface. This could have easily been “buddy road trip movie with the goofy one and the stern one as they explore Poland” but the films approach is a lot more subversive than that. The film is subdued in presentation. What start off as simple conversations - sometimes seemingly about nothing end up teaching us a lot about these characters and their own insecurities. Benji makes a comment about David’s feet at the start of the film, and David looking at his feet anxiously becomes a reoccurring motif through the rest of the film. When critics say “it will make you laugh and it will make you cry” they are talking about movies like A Real Pain. The emotions never come from any sort of sweeping score or big emotional monologue designed to make you feel something. The emotions snuck up on me watching the movie - as I realized how much I had attached to these two cousins and felt like I had spent the week with them touring Poland. They seem like such fully realized people and I wanted to see them be okay.
If you are someone that’s ever cared about someone and saw the good in someone that is inherently self destructive, this film will resonate with you. It certainly did with me. It’s a movie that shows that the real pain we carry with us are the ones we burden on ourselves. Our own self image can be so deceiving - we carry so much burden on ourselves that we don’t have to. Sometimes, it takes harrowing ourselves and reminding ourselves and where we’ve been and where we come from that can start to put stuff in perspective. There’s a moment in the film after they visit a concentration camp where Benji starts to cry. A moment where all the pain his grandmother had to witness hits him at once - it’s a powerful moment in the film. We don’t hear him cry in this scene however, we hear non diegetic classical music play as he sobs. This poignant moment shows that Benji has a realization of just how painful his heritage is, but it is a moment of clarity for him. It isn’t supposed to big emotional moment but a moment of understanding. That is the inspired choices this film makes throughout its runtime.
Eisenberg is great behind the camera, creating really striking images. This movie didn’t have to have great cinematography to get its point across and it still manages to look striking. Eisenberg captures Poland in a really gorgeous light. The way he conveys shadows and colors in every shot was really impressive to me. Seeing it on the big screen felt like a treat. I also love the music in the film - it’s all different classical pieces. I lot of Chopin music is used and it gives the film a nice vibe. It feels calm - like you are on this tour with these characters. The overall vibe of the movie is lush. While the story is small in scale the film itself feels vibrant which I appreciated a lot.
Overall, A Real Pain is a movie I took a lot more away from on a rewatch. I believe this is one of the best character studies of the year, an expertly crafted film about the cultural and emotional reasons why we feel pain and how the connections we make can help guide us and heal us. This is a gorgeous movie and one of my personal favorite movies of the year.
