A Real Pain, Banner Eisenberg, comedy, Daniel Oreskes, drama, film festivals, Jennifer Grey, Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy, movies, New York Film Festival, Poland, reviews, Sundance, Sundance Film Festival, Will Sharpe
November 4, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Jesse Eisenberg
Culture Representation: Taking place in mostly in Poland and briefly in New York City, the comedy/drama film “A Real Pain” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two American cousins with opposite personalities bicker and bond with each other during a trip to Poland, to pay tribute to their recently deceased grandmother, who was a Holocaust survivor from Poland.
Culture Audience: “A Real Pain” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and well-acted dramedies about family relationships.
“A Real Pain” is actually a real pleasure to watch because of this comedy/drama’s skillful performances. In this story about two American cousins visiting Poland together, it uses a familiar movie formula of two opposite people who go on a trip, but this journey remains engaging. Don’t expect “A Real Pain” to be an action-adventure film or a movie with extremely shocking dramatic scenes. It’s a movie about the ups and downs of middle-class Americans as tourists in Poland, their education about the Holocaust, trying to heal fractured family relationships, and how these experiences affect the ways that they view themselves and others.
Written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, “A Real Pain” (his second feature film as a director) is a vast improvement from 2023’s “When You Finish Saving the World,” his feature-film directorial debut, which he also wrote. “When You Finish Saving the World” is cynical and frequently dull, compared to “A Real Pain,” which is much more interesting to watch and has better pacing. With sharp-minded dialogue and appealing direction, “A Real Pain” has characters that viewers wouldn’t mind seeing more of if the story continued, whereas “When You Finish Saving the World” has the type of characters that most viewers won’t ever care to see again.
“A Real Pain” had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where Eisenberg won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for the movie. “A Real Pain” also screened at the 2024 New York Film Festival. Eisenberg and filmmaking duo/spouses Emma Stone and Dave McCary were among the producers of “When You Finish Saving the World.” These three filmmakers also re-teamed for “A Real Pain.” (Stone and Eisenberg co-starred in the “Zombieland” movies.)
“A Real Pain” begins by showing the two cousins arriving separately at an unnamed New York airport so that they can go on their trip together to Poland. (“A Real Pain” was filmed on location in Poland.) The cousins are related because their fathers are brothers. The cousins, who are in their early 40s, were born three weeks apart and grew up together. They have a relationship that is more like brothers than like cousins.
David Kaplan (played by Eisenberg) is a digital sales executive who lives in New York City. David is nerdy, uptight and a happily married father of a son named Abe (played by Banner Eisenberg, Jesse Eisenberg’s real-life son), who’s about 4 or 5 years old. David is the type of person who likes his life to be as orderly and scheduled as possible. David constantly worries, but he doesn’t want his anxiousness to get in the way of any of his plans or relationships. He also dislikes over-sharing or getting too emotional in front of strangers.
David’s cousin Benji Kaplan (played by Kieran Culkin) lives in Binghamton, New York, which is about 178 miles northwest of New York City. Benji is a freewheeling bachelor with no children. Benji is an unapologetic pothead who is often unemployed and makes money by getting odd jobs (such as working in construction) whenever he can. Benji is the type of person who hates corporate capitalism and thinks it would be hell for him if he worked in an office job. Unlike emotionally reserved David, Benji has frequent curse-filled outbursts where Benji rants about how he feels, even if the way he expresses these emotions are rude and disruptive.
David and Benji had a beloved grandmother named Dory Kaplan, who was a Holocaust survivor originally from Poland. Dory, who recently died, was the mother of the fathers of David and Benji. In her will, Dory requested that Benji and David use part of the inheritance money that she left for them to visit her native Poland together, so that the cousins could better understand her personal history before she immigrated to the United States. David and Benji willingly go on this trip as a tribute to her, but this trip is also a way for Benji and David to reconnect because they haven’t seen each other in months.
Within the first 10 minutes of “A Real Pain,” it’s easy to see that these two cousins have very different personalities and contrasting lifestyles. David thinks Benji’s lifestyle is too immature and unstable, while Benji thinks David’s lifestyle is too boring and restrictive. These differences predictably cause a lot of friction during the trip. However, some of their conflicts and resentments have been brewing for months or years before the trip even took place.
When they arrive at the airport, Benji thinks he can sneak his marijuana stash on the plane in his carry-on luggage. David vehemently disagrees and persuades a reluctant Benji to throw away the marijuana in an airport garbage can before they pass through the airport’s X-ray machines and metal detectors. When the two cousins arrive in Poland and check in at their hotel, David sees that Benji found another way to have a marijuana stash in Poland: Benji secretly mailed himself a packet of marijuana to be delivered to him by the hotel’s front desk.
During conversations in the movie, it’s revealed that although Benji can be abrasive and argumentative, he is actually very sensitive deep down inside. Benji is taking his grandmother Dory’s death a lot harder than David is coping with the death. Benji says that Dory was “my favorite person in the world.” Benji expresses admiration for how Dory, who did not have a formal education beyond elementary school, was able to go from being an employee of a small real-estate company to becoming the company’s owner.
David and Benji signed up to be part of a small tour group to visit Polish landmarks, particularly those that have to do with Jewish history and the Holocaust. David told the tour in advance that the cousins would leave the tour group a day early so that Benji and David could visit the house where Dory used to live in Poland. The interactions with the other people in the tour group also show how David and Benji are different from each other.
The tour guide is a friendly and intellectual Brit named James (played by Will Sharpe), who tells the members of the tour group up front that even though he isn’t Jewish or Polish, he has tremendous respect and passion for Jewish history and Eastern European cultures. James mentions that he was an Eastern European scholar at Oxford University and is “obsessed” with Eastern Europe. James is very mindful of not doing anything to offend people, which is why he’s genuinely shocked later in the movie when Benji unleashes a torrent of harsh criticism against James for what Benji thinks James is doing wrong as a tour guide.
All the other people in the tour group are Jewish. Marcia Kramer (played by Jennifer Grey) is a divorced homemaker, who has recently moved back to New York City after living for about 20 years in Los Angeles. Married couple Mark Binder (played by Daniel Oreskes) and Diane Binder (played by Liza Sadovy)—who are from Shaker Heights, Ohio—are retired and easygoing, although Mark is much more opinionated than Diane. Eloge (played by Kurt Egyiawan) is a Rwandan immigrant/genocide survivor who moved with his mother to the Canadian city of Winnipeg when he was a child. As an adult, Eloge (who is thoughtful and philosophical) converted to Judaism.
“A Real Pain” has no interest in being a slapstick comedy. The movie’s story unfolds in a naturalistic way, where not much happens except further insights into the personalities of the two main characters. Benji and David get up to some minor mischief—at Benji’s urging, of course. It’s Benji’s idea for them to sneak up on the hotel rooftop to smoke marijuana. In another scene in the movie, Benji shows David how they can avoid paying the fare for an unexpected train trip that the two cousins end up taking separately from the rest of the tour group.
Fairly early in the movie, there’s an example of how different David and Benji are when it comes to interacting with others. While on a walking tour with the group, Benji notices that Marcia seems to be sad and lonely. Benji wants to start a conversation with Marcia to keep her company, but David doesn’t think it’s a good idea because David thinks Marcia might want to be left alone. Of course, Benji doesn’t listen to David. Benji walks over to Marcia and says to her jokingly, “Why are you walking alone? Are you a big fucking loser?”
Even though Benji and David get on each other’s nerves, each cousin has qualities that they admire about each other. And there’s obviously genuine family love that these two cousins have for each other. David is in awe of how Benji has the type of charisma that can “light up a room,” and people can still like Benji, even when Benji proverbially “shits all over everything the room.” Benji looks up to David’s intelligence. In a tender family moment in their hotel room, Benji says to David, “You look wise. It’s beautiful.”
The scenes where the tour group visits Holocaust sites are handled with sensitivity and care. And although deceased grandmother Dory is never seen in the movie, her presence is very much felt in the conversations and interactions that David and Benji have with each other. David feels a little bit envious that Benji had a closer and more special relationship with Dory.
“A Real Pain” mostly excels in how the movie lets viewers get to know these characters during this trip. The comedy flows through seamlessly in little moments, such as when Davd and Benji find themselves in awkward situations. Viewers can imagine how these two cousins might have interacted in similar ways when Benji and David were children.
The movie also realistically addresses the issues of people who used to be very close but who drift apart because of lifestyle changes. Benji has a lot of lingering anger because married father David doesn’t have as much time to hang out with Benji, compared to when David was a bachelor with no children. David has some pent-up fury over something shocking that Benji did that happened (but is not shown) six months before this trip to Poland took place.
If there’s any criticism of “A Real Pain,” it might have to do with the character of Benji, who is depicted as a not-so-lovable rogue, but he gets off the hook a little too easily for how he sometimes cruelly behaves to other people. Benji isn’t occasionally cranky. He often seems to go out of his way to hurt people with his insults. And he makes several comments that he dislikes seeing other people being happy. On the other hand, Benji is extremely moody: One minute, he could be berating someone, and within seconds he could also be praising the same person.
Benji is obviously emotionally troubled, but there’s a lot of enabling of Benji that might not sit right with some viewers. Anyone with basic knowledge of psychology can see that Benji appears to have an undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and he’s probably abusing marijuana to self-medicate. And although David smokes some marijuana too, David is obviously not dependent on marijuana to cope with life.
“A Real Pain” isn’t trying to be a movie that has the answers to Benji’s mental health problems. Rather, this movie authentically shows the helplessness that people can feel when they or their loved ones have a mental illness. By the end of the movie, some questions remain about what will happen next between these two cousins, but these are questions that are just the movie’s reflection of the real-life unpredictablity of ever-evolving relationships.
Searchlight Pictures released “A Real Pain” in select U.S. cinemas on November 1, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on November 15, 2024.