A Real Pain

By Joanna Langfield

Jesse Eisenberg’s loving and pungent road movie takes us on a trip that is both great fun and heart-wrenching. I couldn’t have loved it more.

David (Eisenberg, who also wrote and directed) and Benji (a devastating Kieran Culkin) are first cousins, born three months apart, yet as different as they could be, now that they are adults. Off they go to Poland, on a trip paid for by their recently deceased grandma. She wanted them to see where she grew up, to find their roots. But maybe Grandma knew the trip would mean far more than that.

At first glance, this works, and works well, as a buddy film, two disparate guys taking to the road. One wants a shower, the other’d rather smoke weed. This is a dynamic we’ve seen before, of course, and Eisenberg uses it wisely as a starting point. He has a lot more on his mind than just easy laughs and, as Benji’s situation becomes more clear, as does David’s inability to fix it, we’re into some much more interesting and beautifully portrayed areas.

And then there’s the concentration camp. The scenes of where Grandma and so many others had been imprisoned, filmed on site with sparse dialogue, are more than sobering. They are devastating. As they should be. Eisenberg’s reminder to “Never Forget” is timeless, no matter how political events may try to shape it.

There’s an elegance and compassion that winds through Eisenberg’s script and direction. And the subtlety with which he reveals David’s and Benji’s true selves is wonderfully controlled. But it’s Culkin who’s the knockout, deftly drawing us in just as close as it feels the complex and troubled Benji would want.

No, you do not have to be Jewish to appreciate this multifaceted film. All you have to be is someone who appreciates very good filmmaking when you see it.