Like real life, the film doesn’t give easy answers. It does, however, compel us to reflect on life’s big questions without being preachy.
On the surface, watching A Real Pain is not so different from Richard Linklater’s beloved Before trilogy. The main characters weave their way through charming European locations, bantering between the mundane and the philosophical.
But in the Jesse Eisenberg directed and penned film, Eisenberg’s David and Kieran Culkin’s Benji aren’t loved up nor are they buddies—they are cousins. Once as tight-knit as brothers, the two have drifted away from each other because of life and an unspeakable incident. In the wake of their Grandma Dory’s death, however, they find themselves reunited for a Jewish heritage tour through Poland, gifted by and in remembrance of their late granny, a Nazi concentration camp survivor.
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Part character study, particularly of the charming yet tormented Benji, played with such incandescence by Culkin—who swept all supporting actor awards, by the way—and part meditation on some of life’s biggest questions, I daresay A Real Pain is one of the best movies I’ve watched in recent memory. And at only 90 minutes, it’s a breather from your usual awards contenders, such as The Brutalist, which clocks in at an astounding 215 minutes.
The genius and charm of A Real Pain, lie in how it balances the gravity of the issues it touches on—such as the Holocaust, the Jewish diaspora, human suffering, and suicide—with light and tender moments, despite the humor skewing more toward dark comedy. It’s a bleak film given a light treatment, but without trivializing uncomfortable questions.
The film takes us on a tour of the Majdanek concentration camp, for instance, where an estimated 78,000 Jews were murdered. It chooses to go easy on the details, as made clear by the Oxford-educated tour guide James (played with adorable dorkiness by Will Sharpe of The White Lotus fame). Eisenberg lets the visuals speak for themselves: the gas chamber, the ovens, the innumerable shoes stacked on top of one another, the ghostly silence that shrouds the place. It is the lack of facts and trivia, however, that drives home the point more deeply—some events after all are beyond the power of words.
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In another scene about 39 minutes into the film, David and Benji engage in a philosophical exchange with their fellow travelers on dealing with human suffering. For roughly two minutes, the film makes viewers ask themselves: how do we make it through such a cruel world? Do we, as Eisenberg through the character Eloge (a survivor of the Rwandan genocide) so wittily puts it, “ignore the proverbial slaughterhouse to enjoy the steaks”? Or do we, like Benji, face the pain so that maybe, “sad sh*t wouldn’t constantly happen?”
In going through life, are we like Dave, who has the luxury to choose to ignore other people’s pain and suffering? Or are we like Benji, who chooses otherwise, embracing life in all its beauty and brokenness, because we are also broken inside?
The film doesn’t give clear and easy answers—well, real life rarely does. It, however, compels us to reflect on these big questions without being pedantic and preachy. And it is in its wit and earnestness that makes A Real Pain a real treat.
Watch the trailer below.
