FILM/ REVIEW
A REAL PAIN
Rated R
90 Minutes
Limited Release November 1st, Wider Release December 31st
Nominated for Academy Awards – Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor
What seems to begin as a simple buddy travel comedy, A Real Pain takes us on a journey not only to a foreign land where horrific atrocities occurred in our recent world history but also on an exploration of the psyches of two young men who probably don’t realize how much the history of their people has played in shaping their personalities. These two young men are played by Jesse Eisenberg as “David” and Keiran Culkin as his cousin, “Benji.” Their personalities couldn’t be more night and day, and this allows them to play off one another perfectly, to unearth each other’s deepest fears, sadness, questions, and yearnings. The dialogue is creative and authentic.
You will feel that you truly get to know these two during this film, which has the courage to confront the emotional fallout of Hitler’s concentration camps generations later. Eisenberg not only directs and plays a lead role – he also wrote the script, and the film was shot on a tight budget over 2 months on location in New York and Poland. The production hired around 100 Polish extras. The setting in Poland is significant, as that country has traditionally been home to a rich Jewish community because of its historic tolerance for all religions, and the location of David and Benji’s grandmother’s house that they visit is the actual location where some of Eisenberg’s Jewish ancestors had settled.
The rest of the ensemble, the tour group that the cousins travel with, is also beautifully portrayed by Will Sharpe, David Oreskes, Lisa Sadovy, Kurt Egyiavan, and Jennifer Grey. Each shows us perceptions of what drives their character, even without a lot of screen time. Eisenberg’s superb script allows us to uncover insights into their deepest feelings through their conversations and interplay. The story flows along a timeline and moves gracefully between contemplation and action in scenes that open our understanding of the two cousins and the members of their travel group.
Both David and Benji bear the remnants of ancestral anguish dealt by a power-mad German dictator beginning almost a century ago. This profound pain is reflected in different ways in the exquisite and real portrayals by Eisenberg and Culkin. Culkin does a tremendous job at creating a character who is at once unbalanced, exquisitely sad, and a dreamer. His Benji is very real, not a caricature. He radiates his emotions. Eisenberg’s David has internalized his pent-up feelings to become a seemingly normal Dad who loves his wife and young child and is focused on providing for his family.
As I’m writing this review, January 28th was the 80th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp and extermination site, located in Krakow, Poland. The camp that the tour group visits is Majdanek, a lesser-known camp near Lublin in Poland. Between 1941 and 1944, the Nazis murdered 80,000 people there. Jennifer Grey, who is part Jewish and plays pretty divorcee “Marcia” in the tour group, was deeply affected upon visiting the camp.
The end of the film reveals the two different worlds of the cousins in silent and emotionally deafening visuals. If this movie helps you remember a horror that you never had to personally experience, it will have been worth every second of the artists’ work. You will find that A Real Pain will create vivid memories of the story, the people, the places, and its history in your mind. I look forward to seeing more of Eisenberg’s work behind and in front of the camera and from the screenwriter’s desk.
Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com
