While seemingly an Odd Couple remake set in the Millennial age with Neurotic and Neurotic-er, A Real Pain is a treatise/meditation(?) on grief, the human condition, and how we each have chosen, whether consciously or unconsciously, to deal with trauma.
A Real Pain tells the story of two cousins, who have drifted apart, embarking on a Heritage Tour across Poland in the wake of the death of their beloved grandmother. Despite its setting, the film is less about American Jews reckoning with their connections to the Holocaust and more about trying to confront personal traumas while reconnecting with one’s roots, and each other, as Jesse Eisenberg’s David is confronted with complicated feelings about his beloved but estranged cousin, Benji, played by Kieran Culkin.
The on screen dynamic between Eisenberg and Culkin is an absolute joy to watch, and I don’t think it is hyperbolic to say that they are both masters at their craft. Both are able to bring these beautifully flawed characters to life in all of their painful and truthful entirety.
While reading through interviews, it becomes apparent that they are also true collaborators, despite Eisenberg being at the helm both in the writing and directing of the movie, the moments of improvisation from Culkin that Eisenberg chooses to leave in the final edits belies the enormous amount of trust and true cooperative spirit he gives to his actors and crew.
And then there is also the enormous trust he has in the audience. Eisenberg is by no means pandering to us, he doesn’t seek to give us neat little parables or opinions, he allows his audience to read into what he is presenting and take away what they will. He is constantly surprised when people say they cried during the film, because he didn’t engineer any of it. Which perhaps also speaks to his maturity as a writer, with his thoughtful understanding of the human experience and the universality of his themes.
A Real Pain is definitely Eisenberg’s most mature work to date. In the past, Eisenberg has had a habit of writing painfully neurotic irredeemable menaces/assholes/bastards for himself to play on stage, as if to exorcise some horrible demon within himself and inflict them upon the characters within his plays. With A Real Pain, he’s gone for a different kind of pain, the quiet self inflicted kind known to caregivers who look after others. In David Kaplan – the character he has written for himself – he has created a character, while still neurotic, is tempered by maturity, and frankly looks almost normal in comparison to the almost bi-polar Benji.
The characters of Benji and David are not new to Eisenberg, he’s written about these characters multiple times in the past and knows them so well that he is able to put to paper things that he is not even consciously aware of but are true to the character themselves. And with them, Eisenberg reminds us that within each of us there exists a multitude, we are all able to hold many conflicting things within ourselves at the same time. This is most apparent within Benji, whose outrage at times almost seems performative, yet belies a soul that just feels way too much, that doesn’t yet know, or even wants to know, how to deal with his feelings in a way that mainstream society will find acceptable.
A Real Pain provides no neat answers. Only that life is best lived in the moment, experienced, and felt. That contentment and life looks different for everyone. That there is no one way to do things. The film is beautiful in its simplicity. No fancy gimmick, no special effects, no multi camera set pieces. It is just a simple film about people traveling and talking. The ending of A Real Pain is purposely ambiguous, especially for Benji. And that’s okay, because sometimes, the only way out, is through.
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