A Real Pain – Review

A Real Pain

“It’s fascinating, complex, at times tragic but, ultimately, beautiful,” tour guide James (Will Sharpe) says of Poland’s history with its Jewish communities. It’s a throwaway line designed to engage his heritage tour group as they gear themselves up for time in Warsaw and Lublin. But it could almost describe A Real Pain itself. 

Written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, the film centres around the neurotic David (Eisenberg) and the affable but chaotic Benji (Kieran Culkin), two cousins who have decided to travel to Poland to pay a visit to their recently deceased grandmother’s house. She was a concentration camp survivor and her death has prompted a torrent of memories and complicated feelings within the pair, each of whom are dealing with their grief in very different ways. 

The film opens in an airport lounge, with (who else but) Chopin’s Nocturne Opus 9, No. 2 playing breezily over a tracking shot. Benji idly looks around him, taking in the various situations that tend to unfold in these locations. This is contrasted sharply with David leaving several voicemails to Benji, keeping up to speed with the traffic jams he is encountering and how late he predicts he will be. It’s a neat way to set up their personalities; a binary that carries throughout the entire film. 

A Real Pain

Eisenberg’s script balances rapid fire exchanges with thoughtful pauses; emotional outbursts with devastating silence. Culkin’s performance is a tour-de-force that is rightfully gaining plaudits on the awards circuit. He makes Benji personable to the point of invasiveness; gesticulating frequently and prone to ranting. He is crying out to be loved amongst all his performative normalcy. His grief over his grandmother is palpable despite his hyperactivity and carefully curated nonchalance. Benji is a character designed to both endear and annoy audiences, something Culkin does effortlessly. David, meanwhile, wears his anxiety and social awkwardness like a comfort blanket, hanging back from the tour group and endlessly apologising for Benji’s latest faux pas. 

The score comprises mainly of Chopin, alternating between trill-laden upbeat flourishes and sonorous melodies. Warsaw is shown to be a mix of high rise flats, sombre memorials, glass towers and ornate classic buildings. Lublin is awash with red-tile roofs and sun-kissed pastel coloured buildings. Eisenberg allows his camera to lovingly take it all in, placing you on the tour with the rest of the characters. 

There’s two particularly striking moments within the film. One is when the group reaches Majdanek, the former camp. The group takes on a hush and the camera pulls out wide, as if emphasising the sheer scale of the inhumanity. It closes up on the characters, again, as they reach the gas chambers, each face riddled with a complex sense of history and loss. It’s a moment of stillness not to be found anywhere else in the film – even the sound briefly cuts to nothing. The second moment is when David once again finds himself apologising for Benji. The group reassures him that he is simply troubled but “he wants to be good”. Eisenberg delivers a powerful monologue, detailing Benji’s mental health struggles. David elaborates about how he loves him but he hates him; he’s exhausted by him but he wants to be just like him. It’s one of the most poignant and honest moments of the entire film. 

A Real Pain

There’s also a lot of humour here, despite the heavy subjects A Real Pain seeks to tackle. Whilst Benji rants about the irony of a group of Jewish people sitting in first class seats on a train through Poland, storming off to sit elsewhere, fellow tourist Mike drily retorts, “I don’t think you’ll find much suffering there, either.” David and Benji frequently sneak up onto various rooftops in order to smoke weed. Their memories of their grandmother are wholesome and humorous. 

This is a film that is both quiet and restrained; loud and clumsy about its hurt. “You light up a room then shit on everything inside it,” David says to Benji, exasperated and frightened. It touches on memory and pain, loss and resilience. It opts for relatable and authentic discussions about what it is to grieve and to love. 

A Real Pain is both an uplifting and an emotional watch. Kieran Culkin is outstanding as Benji and credit must also go to Eisenberg’s beautiful script. We end the film as we begin, with Benji in an airport lounge. You can’t help but think that, this time though, he has a clearer sense of direction. 

A Real Pain is now screening in UK cinemas.

Mary Munoz
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