Mismatched cousins reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother, but their old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.

Jesse Eisenberg’s second movie in the director’s chair is ‘A Real Pain’, a comedy-drama about two Jewish cousins who travel to Poland together to visit their grandmother’s childhood home and various locations as part of a holocaust tour. They are the slightly uptight and straight laced David (Eisenberg), and Benji (Kieran Culkin), who is more of a wildcard shall we say. They haven’t spent a huge amount of time together in recent years, but spurred on by their grandmother’s recent passing and Benji’s personal troubles, they’ve decided to reconnect and learn about their heritage. The title of the movie is quite instructive as this is a movie about pain in all its guises, from the deeply generational trauma of the holocaust, to the personal pain that Benji, and other characters, are experiencing, and what a ‘real’ pain is will be explored thoughtfully throughout.

Kieran Culkin is essentially playing a version of Roman from ‘Succession’ and Jesse Eisenberg is basically playing Jesse Eisenberg, but the characters work as they are written to suit the actors. Benji is one of these people who can be funny and infuriating in equal measure, engaging in one moment then obnoxious in the next, and Culkin plays him superbly and is rightly getting a lot of plaudits. As for Eisenberg, we know what he does well (see ‘The Social Network‘) and I thought he was really good here in a slightly more understated role. They’re excellent alongside each other.

I found it to be quite insightful about the tour group experience, and how different individuals from different backgrounds spend time together and have different ideas and expectations about what they want to get out of the experience, and it neatly draws out the conflict between tourism, real life experience and not exploiting the past. Indeed, one of the great strengths of ‘A Real Pain’ is that it isn’t exploitative and is actually quite nuanced and insightful in dealing with its subject matter. It is very funny, but it undercuts the humour with real pathos and poignancy, and the key moments between the characters feel wholly earned.

‘A Real Pain’ is a terrific piece of work from Jesse Eisenberg, with an outstanding Kieran Culkin at its heart, and I thought this was an excellent movie.

Rating: 4/5

Directed By: Jesse Eisenberg

Starring: Kieran Culkin, Jesse Eisenberg, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy, Daniel Oreskes and Ellora Torchia

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt21823606/