A REAL PAIN

Watch The Trailer

Storyline (warning: spoilers)

Who’s in more pain: The guy who holds nothing back, or the guy who keeps everything inside?
If it seems odd for a comedy to have such a heavy question at its centre, that’s all part of the magic trick that Jesse Eisenberg has pulled off as writer/director/star of A Real Pain. While it may seem counterintuitive to make a road comedy about a couple of American cousins going on a Holocaust tour in Poland, Eisenberg’s film is attuned to the ways that laughter can percolate on the other side of discomfort and/or outright tragedy.
But A Real Pain is also very much aware of the ways in which the brightest smiles and broadest laughs can serve as masks for deep wells of feeling, a disparity it engages and provokes in dozens of different forms across its compact 90 minute runtime. The result is a small gem of a movie, consistent in its humour and boundlessly surprising in its humanity.
Together, the duo travel around Poland with a tour group, exploring the culture and legacy of the recently departed grandmother whose death haunts both men. Benjy especially has been left unmoored and aimless after the loss of someone so clearly central to his life, and David clearly hopes that this trip will galvanize his cousin back into a more proactive manner of living.
As a director, Eisenberg favours keeping as many actors in frame as he can, giving his ensemble the space to dictate the pacing and rhythms of a scene. While A Real Pain grapples with heavy subject matter, Eisenberg is careful to never let grandiosity overwhelm his story. Instead, the emotions it conjures up, be they painful or not, are understated and deeply earned.
You might even say: Real.
Original