Director: Jesse Eisenberg
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sodovy, Daniel Oreskes
Screenplay: Jesse Eisenberg
90 mins. Rated R for language throughout and some drug use.

There are two kinds of travelers in this film. One of them is David (Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network), a meticulous and planned out traveler. The other is Benji (Kieran Culkin, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World), a spontaneous, unpredictable journeyman. Two kinds of travelers. I am both.

Cousins David and Benji reunite to honor the passing of their grandmother by joining a group taking part in a Holocaust tour of Poland. David’s more rule-focused and strict timeline is tested when Benji swings between spontaneous joy and empathetic depression, which throws confusion into their tour group. The two cousins find frustrating resentment and a newfound respect for each other while trying to reconnect once again.

As far as road movies go (and this is a road movie), this is certainly more Wim Wenders than Bing Crosby/Bob Hope. Eisenberg is a thoughtful writer/director, and his character piece gives plenty more to Culkin’s Benji than to his David, but David actually serves nicely as the audience surrogate so we get to experience all the frustration and confusion that David participates in. Benji is a rather contradictory character, and I think that’s intentional. There are times when he wants to bring joy to a dreary situation and others where he gets upset that the tour group is enjoying a train ride in a country that use trains to send his people to death not so many decades ago. He wants to meet and experience each person who enters his life, but he also harbors tremendous loneliness over the death of his grandmother and the distance between him and his family. It’s a fascinating character that showcases that even when we grow, it’s not accomplished overnight or with a hastily-written conclusion. Eisengerg’s film shows that growth is immediate, and it’s not as easy as a 90 minute movie would usually lead us to believe.

The rest of the tour group rounds out nicely, including a terrific Jennifer Grey (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and a frequently underrated Kurt Egyiawan (Skyfall) and others, and it’s through the group and David that we view Benji. David is a nervous wreck, always wondering about what Benji will do to embarrass him, and yet, Benji’s most vulnerable outbursts only seem to bring him closer to the individual group members because he’s honest with his own emotions and feelings in a way that David never could be.

A Real Pain circulates around the idea of memory, specifically in the ways we remember our loved ones after their gone. From the Holocaust memorials to the memory of David & Benji’s grandmother to that concern over what will be remembered of us when we are gone, and it’s the most fascinating part of the film. I love that any film seen as a dramedy can attempt to make a statement on something as emotionally resonant as memories.

The movie is quite often funny, but less so in a guffaw-inducing way. It had a smirkiness to it that I was quite fond of, with smartly-written, character-derived comedy that was never there just to make the audience laugh. We laugh because we know a David. We know a Benji. Or we are one. There’s also the smart decision made by Eisenberg to pull back on anything resembling comedy for the most intense sequence, where the group tours a concentration camp. Eisenberg’s direction is concise and respectful and always about the impact on the characters.

A Real Pain is a solid character piece with all-around great performances centered about the revelatory Kieran Culkin. Eisenberg has proven himself to be a more-than-capable writer/director and I’m excited to see where he goes next. His is a comedy that manages to tell some inspired character stories and also give some lovely themes of memory and pain, both major and minor. I also loved that it’s able to do all that in 90 minutes. In a world of woefully bloated films, we should all recognize A Real Pain and take the journey with these two.

3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe