A Real Pain
by Hope Madden
“My pain is unexceptional, and I don’t feel the need to burden everybody with it.”
It’s a revelation articulated by David Kaplan (Jesse Eisenberg), and just one of countless memorable insights in the screenplay Eisenberg penned for his second feature behind the camera, A Real Pain.
David and cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin) are traveling together to Poland to honor their recently deceased Grandmother Dora, who’d survived the Holocaust by “a thousand little miracles” and left her grandsons funds to make the trip.
David’s been busy with work and family. Benji has not. The odd couple—one reserved and polite, the other charming and wild—join a tour group and embark on their adventure.
Culkin is excellent, delivering a masterful performance that oscillates between charming emotional manipulator and hard-core emotional basket case. The relationship between the cousins is lived-in and fraught. Benji plays Dave, plies him with intimate attention, prods him with tenderness then punishes him the next second. But thanks to Culkin’s raw performance, it’s hard to hold anything against Benji.
Eisenberg’s performance meshes with Culkin’s, reflecting the authentic yin to his yang. In Eisenberg’s hands, Dave’s manipulation is quiet but pointed, his sympathy condescending. The two actors—much thanks to an observant script and delicate direction—carve out the recognizable patterns of family.
Screenwriter Eisenberg complicates characters. The enjoyable verbal sparring between two bright, witty buddies keeps the film entertaining, but the tremendous depth of both performances unearths something surprisingly moving.
Eisenberg’s work as a filmmaker here is very sharp, never taking the cheap shot. Both characters are held to account, but there’s a generosity of spirit in the film that’s equally forgiving. The result is a poignant treasure.
As an actor, Eisenberg has never been better, truly, and one of his many strengths (as an actor and a filmmaker) is to just let Culkin steal this movie. Benji is recognizable and unforgettable in a film that wants badly to embrace the uncomfortable complications of family, if only it could.
