A Real Pain movie review and movie summary (2024)

We are all only tourists when it comes to the pain of others. That should not be taken as a knock on the importance of compassion and empathy. On the contrary, they seem more essential now than ever before. But there are limits to how much we can actually put ourselves in other people’s shoes. Being a witness, being an ally, just being a shoulder to cry on – these are the things that connect us and make us human, but everyone has a different emotional language built on years of experience that we can mitigate from beat the world but never tell completely. This truth is at the heart of Jesse Eisenberg’s masterful “A Real Pain,” a story about two cousins ​​who travel to a place where unspeakable pain was inflicted on humanity while battling their own personal demons. On the surface, it’s an oil-and-water tale of two men who are practically brothers but who have lived remarkably different lives—one a bubbling fountain of emotion, the other going through more traditional patterns of existence. Both men want to be like the other. Eisenberg’s film poignantly and brilliantly understands how they cannot.

David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) have booked a trip to Poland to learn about how the Holocaust affected the region through the lens of visiting their grandmother’s hometown. A survivor herself, Grandma recently passed, leaving her BFF Benji in one of those emotionally abandoned chapters that we all face at various times in our lives. The cousins, so close in age they’re practically brothers, join a tour group led by the engaging James (Will Sharpe), which also includes four other travelers played by Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egiywan, Liza Sadovy and Daniel Oreskes . Everyone here feels like they existed before they arrived in Poland and will return to their lives after the tour ends. One of the many wonderful things about Eisenberg’s excellent script is that he refuses to use the other tourists as emotional pawns. There is a much worse version of this movie that gives each tour member problems that Benji or David can solve. And yet they aren’t just background either – they enhance the play’s overall correctness.

Most people won’t notice because they’ll be so enthralled, but what Emmy-winning Culkin does in this movie. In easily one of the best performances of 2024, he plays a guy we all know (or was at some point in our lives): the friend or relative that we can’t stand under certain circumstances and yet secretly want to be more like even at his worst. Culkin is so raw and organic and draws Benji in a way that never feels calculated. Despite watching him for hours on “Succession,” the actor almost instantly disappears into this role, and we believe every choice he makes. He finds a way to convey an inner monologue that Benji may not even fully understand, but which comes out through his eyes, body language and tenor.

What really elevates “A Real Pain” is that writer/director Eisenberg never feels sorry for Benji, but doesn’t put him on a pedestal either. He’s a pain in the ass. But he’s also not really wrong when he has an emotional outburst over the discomfort of taking a train to a concentration camp or lashes out at James for spitting out facts instead of actually connecting with the locals in the towns they visit . That scene is a true standout, a moment that distills the complexity of Benji’s emotionally raw existence. No one has ever criticized the obviously likable and informed James before, which made it easy to see Benji as a troublemaker, but he’s just honest about his emotional response to what’s around him. Where is the error in that? Why are so few of us willing to express these difficult feelings? Isn’t burying them the real cause of pain?

Culkin’s performance will be the touchstone of adoration for this film, but Eisenberg’s work as a director and writer should not be overlooked. He uses the music beautifully and delicately, and he memorably drops his score from the mix while the tour is in a concentration camp, a place where the silence says so much more. He perfectly shapes the relatively small story of his film, paring it down to a 90-minute production that has nothing fancy, but also feels completely complete. He shoots Poland with respect and admiration, never succumbing to the travelogue approach to traveling Americans that can derail a film like this. Whenever “A Real Pain” threatens to turn sour or sentimental, Eisenberg’s choices ground it.

And that grounding is what makes it so powerful. Ultimately, it’s about two people who have drifted apart as their lives have gone in such different directions. But they still love each other. You can feel it in every picture. David has a wife and a child he misses at home, but he worries that Benji will return to loneliness, even though he is the first person to make friends in a new place, someone who is genuinely interested and committed in other people’s stories. In just 90 minutes, we get to know David and Benji as if they were our own friends or cousins. Although we can’t quite feel their emotions, we see elements of ourselves in them. It is a powerful feeling to witness art that reminds us that all aspects of our existence are valuable, especially our pain.