A Real Pain Movie Review

Kieran Culkin gives the performance of his career and Jessie Eisenberg writes and directs the acclaimed comedy-drama A Real Pain, a moving if not quite consistent examination of the lasting impact of the Holocaust, and other more modern personal traumas.

Eisenberg also stars as yet another character who looks, sounds, and acts just like the nervous and awkward Jessie Eisenberg we all assume he is like in real life. He travels with his cousin Benji (Culkin), who is the opposite of him in many ways: extroverted, direct, lacking manners, and emotionally unstable. In Poland, they tag along with a small tour group devoted to learning more about the Jewish experience.

Culkin’s Benji is a force to be reckoned with, a young man who simultaneously wins his travel partners over while also acting in a way that would make any tour absolutely miserable in real life. As good as he is here, I struggled immensely to find something to relate to in his character and found absolutely none, which correlates to how much I connected to this movie as a whole, on an emotional level.

A Real Pain is at times funny, and as a comedy—based on the travel adventures of this odd couple—the movie works best.

But it most definitely is more interested in exploring unresolved emotional issues that erupt in potentially dangerous ways—a theme that ties to both the modern personal challenges of the characters we have here, and the historic backdrop of what happened to the Jewish people in World War II.

I respect what Eisenberg assembled here, but the drama didn’t fully connect with me—I watched it, but never (or rarely) felt it. Culkin, the explosive, emotional wrecking ball that swings back and forth throughout the movie, is both A Real Pain’s biggest asset—and a liability. After all, my main takeaway from this movie is that I would never, ever want to be in a tour group with these people—especially Benji.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.