Actor-turned-director Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) drew on his own experiences in framing his sophomore feature film, A Real Pain.  In 2008, he travelled to Poland with his wife and visited the childhood home of his aunt.  He thought it would be a profoundly moving experience but, with no connection himself to the house or the township, it was an unmemorable, ho-hum moment.  He was surprised he didn’t feel more.

In making the story more cinematic, Eisenberg has turned it into the tale of two 30-something-year-old Americans, David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Culkin), who go on a week-long tour through Poland to understand their family heritage.  The pair are cousins (born just a few weeks apart) and whilst they were close growing up, they now live disparate lives and rarely cross paths.  David is a domesticated, ad salesman living in New York City with his wife and child, while Benji remains a weed-smoking “drifter” who still lives at home with his parents and has no career ambitions.

A Real Pain is one of the best releases of 2024 and that’s largely because of the two lead performances.  Emmy winner Kieren Culkin (Succession) is incredible as Benji.  His character is described as someone who “lights up a room and then shits on everything inside of it.”  It’s the perfect analogy.  There are moments on the tour when he’s warm, chatty and friendly but then, just as quickly, he transforms into one who is blunt, rude, and self-centred.  He doesn’t realise he’s doing it either and those around him don’t know how to react.

Culkin has the flashier, award-worthy role but Eisenberg is equally good as the cousin who, despite a full appreciation of Benji’s history and personality, doesn’t know how to react either.  David finds himself (unnecessarily) apologising on a daily basis for Benji’s bipolar-like behaviour but, worst of all, he’s suppressing his own problems.  This is partly because he’s a natural introvert with obsessive-compulsive disorder, but also because Benji’s more overt “cry for help” usually takes centre stage.  It explains the reason why he’s avoided Benji in recent years.

The interaction between these two is the film’s soul, but the other interesting subplot is the tour itself.  They visit a series of locations across Poland as their knowledgeable English guide (Sharpe) provides a history lesson.  It culminates with an emotional trip to the Majdanek concentration camp near Lublin.  Dialogue is used sparingly at this point in the film.  Recalling the atrocities that took place there in the 1940s provides perspective on the trivial issues of today we tend to overbake – a lesson for both the characters in the film and us as the audience.

Clocking in at a tight 90 minutes, A Real Pain deftly mixes comedy, drama and heart in achieving its goals.