34/22
Misfit cousins reunite for a road trip across Poland to honor their beloved grandmother, but their old tensions resurface as their family history unravels. When Benji and David visit their grandmother’s home in Poland, Jesse Eisenberg’s place is the place where 39’s real-life ancestors settled in the diaspora. Benji Kaplan: We’re staying mobile, we’re staying light, we’re staying agile. David Kaplan: Yeah. Benji Kaplan: The conductor comes through, takes our tickets, we tell him we’re going to the bathroom. David Kaplan: Bathroom. Benji Kaplan: He comes after the train, he’s off. ahead looking for hitchhikers. David Kaplan: Excuse me, are we hikers? Benji Kaplan: Yeah. By the time he gets to the front, the train is in the station and we’re free to go home. David Kaplan: This is so fucking stupid. The tickets are probably like twelve bucks. Benji Kaplan: That’s the principle of the matter. We shouldn’t be paying for train tickets in Poland. This is our country. David Kaplan: No, it’s not, it was our country. They kicked us out because they thought we were cheap. Featured on CBS News Sunday Morning episode #46.44 (2024). 12 Etudes, Op. 25, No. 3 in F major Written by Frederic Chopin Performed by Tzvi Erez. Jesse Eisenberg’s second effort as a writer-director is something of an unusual one. There’s something of Richard Linklater’s BEFORE trilogy in the DNA of A REAL PAIN, and the recognizable legacy of Michael Winterbottom’s TRIP series is also evident. The meandering pacing, the dull cinematography that begs you to look beneath the surface of the tourist attractions, the dialogue that meanders through a modest and unstructured deconstruction of the meaning of life, the complete absence of any “bad guys.” the almost complete absence of any direct conflict, the slightest hint of any goal that drives the plot beyond the simple completion of a journey… A Real Pain shares all of these realistic traits with earlier, more spiritual, life-affirming films. Yet somehow… it doesn’t quite work. I’m not sure why I never got into this film. I think a lot of it has to do with all the supporting characters (well, everyone except the cousins played by Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin). Will Sharpe’s non-Jewish guide, the Rwandan convert, the old couple, the sexy divorcee… the characters are all very simple, very conventional, very boring. The actors playing them are great, but they don’t have much to do, so they seem unnatural and lifeless, more embellished than human. I think Eisenberg knows how to control the camera; he knows how to put the right cinematic elements in place. But maybe he can’t direct actors, or maybe he just can’t write characters. There’s no indication that these people exist outside of the moments we see them, which could perhaps have been remedied by the actors’ spontaneous improvisations. Eisenberg and especially Culkin are better in this regard, but there’s still something rather crass and “scripted” about it; much of what they say and do. Eisenberg’s “workaholic salesman with OCD” is largely one-dimensional, and the few times his character expands beyond that facade seem more like forced acting than any kind of genuine glimpse into anything deeper. Culkin is lovely—perhaps a glimpse of his successor character, if Roman Roy really cared about people—but I think that’s just a credit to Culkin’s talent; he somehow manages to transcend what he’s given to work with. This is a decent indie film with a few good laughs, a couple of interesting ideas, a memorable tour of Poland, and a solid performance from Culkin.
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