Jesse Eisenberg’s exceptional road trip dramedy is a personal film many of its viewers can relate to.
Films centered around family are a dime a dozen. Whether it’s a singular focus or an element of the story, throughout the year, every genre and subgenre from almost every studio offers films with family playing a role in the finished product. And each year, a handful of these films break through, and its story and/or cast of family characters resonate with its viewers. That resonation can be quite a sentiment and endure for more than just a fleeting moment; that is to say it can stay with you long after the film has ended. And it’s films like those that make for memorable experiences while adding a layer of reflection to your personal life. Jesse Eisenberg’s sophomore directorial effort, A Real Pain, is exactly that type of film, thanks to a combination of strong performances, a really good script, and skillful direction that makes a case for this being one of the year’s best films.
A Real Pain finds cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) reuniting to honor their grandmother by traveling to her native homeland in Poland. The cousins travel to Poland through a touring group, where everyone is traveling for different reasons. However, when the mismatched cousins bring up past family stories along the way, old wounds resurface, and tensions get high.
The further along the film’s less-than-90-minute runtime goes, the more we find out what lies beneath the surface and how opposite the cousins are. And the way director/writer/actor Jesse Eisenberg presents this dynamic is much more effective than most films centered around family. And for a film to be this effective in such a short amount of time speaks volumes, especially when you consider most films dealing with similar subject material are much longer than this one. Add in the film’s viewpoint on mental health and it drives home the point even further.
Of course, this film would not work if not for its two main stars. Jesse Eisenberg is great in all three facets (directing, writing, acting), and his performance in this film reminds us that his days of only being associated with The Social Network are long behind him; he’s a reliably wonderful actor. But the other performance in A Real Pain is a story in itself, and I’m talking about Kieran Culkin. In a tour-de-force performance, Culkin’s Benji is a character whom many people can point to in their own families. As Culkin tries to distance himself from his memorable character in HBO’s Succession, he comes out of the gate strong with arguably the year’s best performance and one that will generate a lot of awards buzz. And if there’s one segment that demonstrates the acting skills of these two actors it’s a dinner table scene that creates an excellent needle-drop effect.
In a time where tensions are high across the country, A Real Pain is a cathartic journey (and an often funny one at that as well). It reminds us of what we should hold onto dearly: the people in our family. And in a year that already has seen more than a few great films, the fact that this offering has stuck with me since I saw it at the Sundance Film Festival back in January speaks volumes. I can’t say for certain whether this film will resonate with you once you see it, but I’d wager that it will.