A Real Pain: A Review - On the Same Old Road Again

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT.  A good but not great film that trods a well-worn path but features solid enough performances to be worth seeing.

A Real Pain, written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin, chronicles two adult cousins as they make a pilgrimage to Poland on a Holocaust tour to visit their late grandmother’s birthplace.

The film, which has a 90-minute run-time, had a limited theatrical release in November and is now available to stream on Hulu, which is where I watched it.  

A Real Pain has a lot going for it, and some things going against it.

The best thing about this movie is that it is the type of movie, a dialogue-driven ‘two-hander’ featuring two skilled actors, that doesn’t get made enough anymore but should.

A Real Pain cost $3 million to make and made $12 million at the box office, and while that won’t buy many beach houses it’s an even enough split to consider the movie well worthwhile.

In addition, the movie is adult fare, which is a rare species nowadays. It isn’t geared toward adolescents but rather toward adults, and adults who either act like adolescents or know other adults who act like adolescents.

And finally, the film features what is sure to be an Oscar nominated performance, and very likely an Oscar winning performance, from Kieran Culkin.

The film follows Eisenberg’s David and Culkin’s Benji, cousins who grew-up together but have grown apart in adulthood, as they fly from New York City to Poland and go on a Holocaust tour with a group of other Jews. There’s an older married couple, a middle-aged divorced woman, and a black African survivor of the Rwandan genocide who has converted to Judaism.

What makes the film compelling are both Culkin and Eisenberg’s performances…but what makes the film a grating experience, are the characters Culkin and Eisenberg play.

Benji is a ne’er do well narcissist and David is a neurotic nebbish, and neither of them are even remotely likable. This isn’t the fault of the actors, it’s just the reality of the characters….and I found them to be annoying as hell, which makes for a less than ideal viewing experience.

This is just me but I have never enjoyed watching Larry David or Woody Allen, and Benji and David are sort of like very, very distant cousins to Larry David and Woody Allen respectively (very, very, very distant…but relations nonetheless).

Culkin’s Benji is supposed to be charismatic in his own peculiar, truth-telling way, but I found him to be repulsive…your mileage may vary. I had no sympathy for him, or even empathy, I just wanted him to go away. David isn’t much better. He’s such a milquetoast, anxiety-ridden wet noodle that I wanted him to disappear too.

Again, and this is important to say, it’s nothing to do with the actors…both Culkin and Eisenberg deliver very solid performances. While Culkin is getting the awards mentions, Eisenberg does equally worthy, but more subtle, work.

The truth is, as good a performance as Culkin gives, there is an air of familiarity to it that feels a little shticky. Benji is, in many ways, just Culkin’s character from Succession, Roman, except Jewish and poor. Culkin’s Benji, like Roman, is quick-witted and snarky yet allegedly good-hearted and tormented. In this way, Culkin’s performance definitely feels like he’s just doing his same old shtick with minor external variances.

That said, it’s a showy, actory part, and he does it well, and I assume Culkin will win an Oscar for it…so good for him and all the more power to him.

Eisenberg has a less showy part, and as is usual with him, is much more internally focused, and he does it well. He has a monologue in a restaurant that is particularly well-done, and smart actors will use it in acting classes and auditions for the next few years.

Eisenberg also wrote and directed the film and he did well enough on both jobs. The script isn’t earth shattering but it is structured well-enough and gives some decent scenes to the actors.

The filmmaking is pretty standard as there’s nothing earth shattering visually, but the movie has a decent pace to it and feels professionally put together, so kudos to Eisenberg on his directorial debut.

Now on to a rather uncomfortable issue, and this is without question a very uncomfortable thing to feel and to discuss, and that is that A Real Pain seems like it’s yet another movie in the Holocaust Cinematic Universe.

Hollywood loves to make Holocaust movies, and that’s understandable as that vile, calamitous event is ripe with drama, but considering the times we live in, and the genocide being actively committed against Palestinians by Israeli ancestors of those who survived the Holocaust, this film’s entitled woe-is-me narrative feels painfully tone-deaf.

The tone-deafness is only accentuated by the film’s rather alarming and arrogant usurpation of the Rwandan genocide for the Jewish narrative, as if Jewishness can be the only home for suffering on such a grand scale. This is a morally insidious and ethically insipid position as it creates a self-righteousness immune from self-reflection – which is how we get an apartheid regime in Israel committing genocide, ethnic cleansing and a cavalcade of other war crimes all in the name of “Never Again” self-defense.

It would have been nice if A Real Pain had been self-aware enough to acknowledge the deeper more conflicted state of Jewishness in the world today rather retread the martyrdom narrative once again, but I suppose that is the safest and easiest path to tread, so I get it.

Despite the combustible moment in which we exist, and the film’s discomfort with this bloody moment (to be fair the film was shot before the October 7th, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and start of the ensuing war), I thought A Real Pain was worth watching.

The film features solid performances across the board, and is geared toward adults, so that’s two wins right there.

If you have a chance check out A Real Pain on Hulu. It’s not the greatest movie you’ll ever see, and it won’t change your life, but it will hold your interest and maybe, if you get lucky, it’ll make you think just a little bit about things you don’t want to think about but should. And regardless of what conclusion you come to through this thinking, it is always good to think about things you don’t want to from time to time.

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