Set during contemporary times, the Kaplan cousins, David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin), head to Poland, join a Holocaust tour group then visit their recently deceased grandmother’s childhood home to pay homage to her. The title, “A Real Pain” (2024), could refer to how David sees Benji. It could also be more existential: the genuine pain of losing a beloved relative, a robbed parallel life after ethnic cleansing motivated immigration, the unfathomable pain of enduring and surviving the Holocaust or the quotidian dread of existence as a sentient sack of meat trying to connect. It is Eisenberg’s sophomore feature film. When the odd couple return home, how will this trip change them and their relationship?
2024 feels like a year devoted to meditating on Holocaust repatriation tourism. “June Zero” (2022) has a section devoted to a debate about the pros and cons of remembrance versus getting stuck in a past that could hinder moving forward. “Treasure” (2024) charts a similar journey to these cousins except it involves a Polish father who survived the horrors of Hitler’s Final Solution and his American daughter returning to Poland in 1990 without the benefit of a well-oiled tourism machine to guide and protect them. While comparison may by the thief of joy, and these films’ goals are the equivalent of apples and oranges, because of the subject matter, it is hard to resist asking why one is critically acclaimed, and the others are not. “June Zero” is experimental. Moviegoers missed “Treasure” because Lena Dunham played the daughter, and the film was a smidge more conventional, but perhaps has the edge on “A Real Pain” in terms of a journey transforming already relatable characters.
“A Real Pain” is more realistic in its lack of resolution or impact on the characters. Even on a tour weighted with pathos, everyone returns to their daily lives, and the internal resolution may be to value the experience, but how long does it last after a plane’s wheels leave the ground. Eisenberg wears many hats in this film, which includes playing the protagonist, an uptight family man who marvels at his cousin’s way of existing while simultaneously finding Benji’s behavior appalling. Though he presents as socially awkward, he is the one with functioning, thriving relationships. The camera mostly depicts events from David’s perspective, which is convenient considering that Eisenberg is the director. He needs breaks from his cousin, but also craves his company, which can be wounding and inconvenient. In one meta scene, he gets stuck holding all the cameras while everyone else mugs in front of massive sculptures. Eisenberg can often be one note, but he gives himself some material that gives him an opportunity to broaden his repertoire.
Benji has a big personality. More responsible than David believes, Benji is incredibly sincere, open and absorbing but also tone deaf, selfish and tyrannical in the way that he never questions his way of navigating the world. Culkin steals every scene and makes Benji into a likeable, frustrating character whose emotional honesty and active engagement are his greatest assets and weaknesses. The big surprise is that David lets his sensitive side slip thus revealing that they are blood relatives, but also that Benji is not as able to connect in a way that goes beyond rhetoric and surface despite his desire to do so. Anyone who goes to the airport to silently hang out does not want anyone to know him, and he is hiding in plain sight.
“A Real Pain” maintains that discernible gap between being around someone/observing them and knowing them. While it is realistic that there is no way to truly understand another person, it creates the impression of lack of character development. The characters only move externally, but they are not much different than the people that they were in the opening. It is mainly a fascinating character study and a meditation on interpersonal dynamics. Without Benji, David naturally exiles himself from others and prefers to photograph monuments when no one is around. He observes, but is not a part of the action, shackled to standards of appropriateness but yearning to be carefree and loved. Benji’s wants are more inscrutable, but it comes down to losing the one person that he had a connection to and feeling resentment that he is not anyone’s primary person.
During the trip, Benji discovers another sorrow: that maybe his grandma found him feckless. Epigenetic trauma exists, and it seems to have landed harder on Benji, who self-medicates through weed openly and alcohol surreptitiously whereas David prefers prescription drugs. The trip is significant but is also anti-climactic according to the cousins. Their grandma’s spirit is not there, and they are guests. Eisenberg wisely uses diegetic sound during the tour of Majdanek concentration camp, so it sounds the same as if the audience was standing there and taking the tour. It is another way of memorializing the place and making it accessible as well as a homecoming for Eisenberg, whose family is from Krasnystaw, but he travelled with his wife, not a cousin, in 2008. His experience inspired his writing.
Culkin and Eisenberg have great chemistry. “A Real Pain” is notable for depicting men being physically warm with each other. Despite the lack of family resemblance, the thought will never cross your mind that they are not biologically related. Their existence is one of their grandma’s accomplishments, but the unspoken fear is will there be a fourth generation and can they continue to survive under relatively easier conditions? It sounds facetious, but it is the weight of grief for one person opening a floodgate that survival kept tightly shut.
The supporting cast is quite good though by necessity and design, their roles are limited. There is James (Will Sharpe), the British tour guide who has been working in Poland for five years without his enthusiasm flagging. Marcia (Jennifer Grey, yes, THAT Jennifer Grey), as a recent divorcee honoring her mother and looking for meaning. A Jewish Polish man, Mark (Daniel Oreskes), whose family immigrated before the Nazis invaded Poland, and his wife, Diane (Liza Sadovy), differ on their view of the cousins. Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan), a Rwandan convert to Judaism, feels called to visit. Though Benji complains about the lack of interaction with the locals, like the tour, none of the locals appear as more than servants until the cousins briefly go off the beaten path for an unexpected, insubstantial encounter. Their fellow tourists and tour guide have more of an impact though it is transitory.
“A Real Pain” is a resounding showcase of authentic emotion. While it may be a slight film, even profound travel is negligible compared to the span of a life. One week is not enough to replace a lifetime. In the end, it also points to the gnawing inadequacy of birth family in adulthood, a fiction no different from a fairy tale that people tell themselves to scare away the boogeyman of a solitary existence.
