Amongst the heavily marketed films of the new year, it feels like A Real Pain has gone somewhat unnoticed, which is a real shame because it is an absolute masterclass in exploring pain in so many of its forms. The film is, in the very simplest of terms, a road-trip movie that borrows from the buddy comedy concept, but Eisenberg (who wrote and directed the film as well as starring) manages to merge this seamlessly with the weighty and emotional backdrop of the horrors of the Holocaust and the impact it had on the descendants of the survivors. It is testament to his writing and directing, as well as the performances of the entire ensemble cast, that the laughs are perfectly balanced with the heavier parts of the film.
Whilst Eisenberg is the creative force behind the film, it is Culkin as Benji who drives most of the action on-screen. The two cousins are perfectly pitched as foils – David is an anxious and uptight digital marketer with a wife (Ellora Torchia) and young child (Eisenberg’s real-life son Banner) at home, whereas Benji is a loud, brash, sometimes hostile man whose lack of direction in life has been exacerbated by their grandmother’s passing. Whilst David relies on prescription medication to (mostly) keep his anxieties in check, Benji instead chooses to self-medicate with the weed he has pre-emptively airmailed himself to their Polish hotel. It is the latter’s unpredictability, along with a real earnestness which Culkin performs immaculately, that means Benji finds himself at the centre of most of the action.
Before heading to where their grandmother used to live, the duo join a Holocaust tour group – consisting of divorcee Marcia (Jennifer Grey), couple Diane (Liza Sadovy) and Mark (Daniel Oreskes), and Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan) who survived the genocide in Rwanda and converted to Judaism – led by British tour guide James (played beautifully by Will Sharpe) who is not Jewish but has an obsessive interest in the subject.
Along the way, there are real laugh-out-loud moments, but these are always against the backdrop of the appalling history of their surroundings. A scene involving Benji and a war memorial while a nervous David looks on is a particular highlight, as is Benji ranting to the rest of the tour group about how wrong it feels for them to be travelling on a train in first class given their backgrounds and the horrors of where they are heading to.
It is scenes like these that A Real Pain is ultimately about – how do we deal with our own pain and trauma, and the generational trauma we inherit from those that come before us? David’s pain is pharmaceutically repressed but overflows occasionally for Eisenberg to give some real emotional gravitas to these scenes. Benji’s pain simmers close to the surface, leading to outbursts of anger and contempt towards others that Culkin delivers perfectly. A number of lingering and uncomfortable silences that are occasionally broken by some existing piano pieces by Chopin only emphasise the difficulty of this subject.
As a whole, the film is a beautiful exploration of how people deal with pain and trauma differently. It makes no judgement on these various ways; it simply shows us that pain exists – at one point, when discussing how they all feel, Eloge says “I feel shaken, but I guess that’s better than feeling nothing” – and it is this idea that Eisenberg and Culkin portray tremendously, making this film an absolute triumph from start to finish.