Earlier this year, I reviewed “Treasure,” with Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry as a daughter and father who travel to Poland so she can see what life was like for him as a young Jewish boy during the Holocaust — and his surviving Auschwitz. I found it a big disappointment and rated it only a 4 out of 10 (my full review is here).
Now comes “A Real Pain,” written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, who co-stars as David with Kieran Culkin as his cousin Benji in another road trip movie about Jewish Americans traveling to Poland to learn about their ancestors’ struggles. The biggest difference between the two movies is that neither Eisenberg or Culkin mopes around as much as Dunham did.
David is an uptight guy who likes to be in control, which isn’t easy around Benji, who — like Culkin’s “Succession” character, Roman Roy — blurts out pretty much every thought without a filter or a care about what anyone else thinks. In each instance, David is horrified and feels he has to apologize for his cousin to the others in the small tour group (including Jennifer Grey as a sixty-something divorcee).
As the story unfolds, we discover that the movie’s title, “A Real Pain,” doesn’t just apply to Benji getting on David’s nerves. It also refers to Benji’s deep melancholy over the death of their grandmother a few months earlier, which is what inspired their trip — and why David is willing to forgive some of his actions despite being horrified by them. Benji is a lost soul in mourning.
The two leads have excellent chemistry, and it’s clear that Eisenberg, as director, decided to allow Culkin to run away with every scene. There are several times where he’s a bit much, though, and could have used someone telling him to dial it back a notch or two. Then again, giving Culkin so much rope may be why there’s early talk about him getting an Oscar nomination.
Eisenberg deserves kudos for using no atmospheric music or light dialogue as the group visits the Majdanek concentration camp, where the Nazis killed 1.7 million Polish Jews. Keeping things low-key — with tour guide James (Will Sharpe) matter-of-factly explaining what they’re seeing — makes those scenes even more impactful.
While “Treasure” was no fun to sit through in any way, there are some comedic moments in “A Real Pain” that help balance the raw emotions and give Culkin and Eisenberg a chance to show how much they enjoyed working together.
“A Real Pain” stayed with me for a few days as I let it tumble around in my brain. That’s a rare quality in any movie, which helped me realize I liked it more than I had originally, finally settling on a rating of 8.5 out of 10. Opens in theaters today.