‘A Real Pain’ is 2024’s great movie
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What a title, so funny and wise, so Jewish and full of struggle and questions: What do we do with the major hardships that are not easily answered by platitudes? How do we all differ in what we perceive as something so enormous? And how do we dismiss with humor or judgment that which we might wrestle with but instead label an inconvenience? In only 82 minutes, writer-director/star Jesse Eisenberg delivers something that sounds absurd and impossible – a very funny movie about confronting tragedy in our history – with more depth and wit than anything else this year, of any length.
David (Eisenberg) is an anxious apologist, immensely aware of other people and uneasy with unloading his emotions, an overreaction to a childhood spent crying ad nauseam. His cousin, Benji (Kieran Culkin, incredible), is a charming bulldozer, declaring every thought and feeling as if to contain something would be disrespectful, no matter how off-putting the comments themselves might be. The two used to be close but time passes and people grow up, although it’s also possible these guys are the same as ever. They’re now brought back together on a trip paid for by their late grandmother, empowering her grandsons to join a tour group in Poland of significant locations from the Holocaust, and also venturing off to see her former home. David has left behind a wife and son in New York City; in Binghamton, Benji hasn’t left behind much of anything and lives and speaks as if he has space available, or questions in need of answers, or just the willingness to admit things most people keep to themselves.
History isn’t easy; people aren’t either. With “A Real Pain,” Eisenberg acknowledges the hazard of remembering and engaging as well as the connection that can be lost through silence. Benji sometimes offends but he also stimulates and relates; David’s politeness assures he earns no one’s distaste and no one’s favor. But there are no easy answers or assertions about anything other than everyone here working through everything – the cast, including Jennifer Grey, Will Sharpe of “The White Lotus,” and Kurt Egyiawan, are all wonderful – and figuring it out in varying states of isolation or unity.
That’s not trite in the slightest; “A Real Pain” is fun and challenging, rewatchable and impactful, accessible and specific. Love it, think about it, struggle with it, appreciate it.
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