Kieran Culkin made me feel Things in Jesse Eisenberg’s road trip dramedy ‘A Real Pain’
4.5/5 pierogies.
Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin are teaming up for Searchlight Pictures’ newest dramedy, A Real Pain—and it might just be a career-best for its leading men.
I was a rare fan of Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut When You Finish Saving the World when it came out last year, so I’m not surprised that he not only met but exceeded my expectations with his sophomore outing, A Real Pain—even if his character takes the (literal) back seat here. The best part? Its runtime comes in at exactly one hour and 30 minutes. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a tight 90. Suffice it to say, that this personal examination of love and loss is well on track to be my favorite movie of 2024.
A Real Pain cements Culkin’s movie star status
In the film, star/director/producer Eisenberg plays David Kaplan, a Well-Respected Man and ad salesman who sets out for a Holocaust tour around Poland—his ancestral home—per the wish of his late grandmother. But really, it’s Succession alum Kieran Culkin who shines as David’s much loved but estranged cousin (it’s complicated), Benji, who joins him for the ride. Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Daniel Oreskes, Kurt Egyiawan, and Liza Sadovy round out the cast.
Although Benji and David spent their youths attached at the hip, they couldn’t be more different as adults. David is married with kids; meanwhile, the pot-loving Benji, unemployed, hasn’t quite made it out of his hometown just yet. Where David is tidy and responsible, Benji is brash, unfiltered, and, at times, irrational, but still, you’ve just gotta love the guy. His charm is infectious. And beneath it all, Benji is a bit of a dark horse, as his “cool guy” energy conceals a far more somber truth, à la Owen Wilson’s Francis Whitman. The Darjeeling Lublin, you could say.
During their tour of Poland, the cousins’ relationship gets put to the test (anyone who has ever made it out of a group trip knows the feeling) as they retrace their grandmother’s footsteps. I’d be remiss to call A Real Pain a road trip movie or buddy comedy, however, as really, it’s about so many things: generational trauma, survivor’s guilt, religion, and the familial ties that tend to go neglected with age.
It also makes some excellent points about how desensitized we as a society have become to violence, via the commodification of real-life tragedies like the Holocaust. Even for someone who’s not Jewish (or any religion, for that matter), that graveyard scene seriously moved me. Cinematography-wise, A Real Pain feels raw and lived-in, particularly evident in long city shots and during the group’s visit to the Majdanek concentration camp. But don’t be fooled by its more solemn moments—those not-infrequent comedic bits will catch you off-guard in the best way possible.
Again, Culkin’s acting chops go to great use here, as his whip-sharp sense of sarcasm acts as the perfect edge to Eisenberg’s mild-mannered David. I think most of us fall on one side of the “David-Benji spectrum”—Type A or Type B, to put it loosely. But A Real Pain never subjects these polar opposites to such binaries, as really, don’t we sometimes wish we could be the other? Even David can appreciate a cheeky rooftop smokeout—and just like Benji, he has a breaking point, too. No one is so simple.
More sweepingly, the film asks its audience some important questions: What does it mean to tolerate someone? Is patience deserved or earned, even for those we love?
A Real Pain‘s genius lies in its ambiguity
As Benji says during one particularly memorable scene, “People can’t go around being happy all the time.” It’s the little tidbits of wisdom he drops that make Benji so compelling—to effortlessly cut through the BS and the suffocating normalcy of daily life that seem so … plasticky when in the throes of grief. And through his interactions with tour guide James, his fellow travelers, and David himself, I couldn’t help but think: is Benji right? After all, why should we avoid asking the tough questions?
Still, Benji routinely embarrasses David in front of their tour group with his NSFW outbursts, a spur-of-the-moment piano concerto, his tendency to sleep through alarms, and flip-flopping emotions. There’s a very palpable coil of frustration slowly unraveling in David’s mind, and yet things always seem to work out for Benji. It’s as tedious for David as it is for the audience. I couldn’t help but root for the guy, but more so, I just wanted him to be OK.
As for worrywart David, A Real Pain just gets it—dealing with a depressed family member feels like walking on eggshells. You’re worried about them 24/7 but you can’t make them feel suffocated. A lingering sense of dread haunts everything they do, as expertly demonstrated by the film’s final scene. It’s nice to think that Benji would set aside his hubris and take David up on his dinner offer, but he’s not ready for that yet. And as morbid as it might sound, David’s support may never be enough. The only person who can “save” Benji is, well, Benji. No proverbial “slap in the face” is needed.
Even though David admires his cousin, his ability to command a room, to convince people to jump when he says “jump,” and Benji’s sporadic tendencies leave David feeling rattled. I wasn’t prepared for how much this dynamic would ruin me. Drifting apart is, whether or not we ever fully accept it, the most natural thing in the world, and I guess we’ll never really know what becomes of these cousins. In short, this one’s a tear-jerker, and I’ve never been so happy to be alive during the Kieran Culkin-sance. More of this, please!
A Real Pain opens in theaters on November 1, 2024.
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