An impressive writer/director effort from actor Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network, Zombieland) A REAL PAIN is a welcome, adult addition to the holiday season.
Hilarious and thoughtful, the story seems simple, but defies convention at every turn. Predictable it is not.
As the film opens, straitlaced (uptight?) and successful family man David Kaplan is on his way to the airport to meet his cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin). The two are making a pilgrimage to Poland to honor their recently passed Grandmother.
We immediately see the obvious differences between the cousins who were very close as children but took different paths in life. David is proper, reserved and guarded. Benji is loose, funny, carefree and doesn't give a damn what anyone thinks of him. There are big laughs aplenty as the two navigate travel to Europe.
The film could have become a globe trotting, modern "Odd Couple" riff.
But Eisenberg's got much more in mind.
The two meet their tour guide, James (Will Sharpe) who isn't Jewish, but has every factoid of Jewish history in his brain, ready to share.
The boys tour group includes a recently retired couple, a recent African immigrant who lived through the terrors of ethnic cleaning in his own country and has converted to Judiasm, and a recently divorced woman Marcia (Jennifer Grey from "Dirty Dancing") ready to breakout of a California induced funk.
Their tour across Europe and eventually to the powerful concentration camps in Poland is a complex, hilarious and touching path. I won't share any details, to describe the route might take away from the enjoyable journey.
What I loved most about the film and experienced again and again thanks to Eisenberg's smart and true screenplay, are the surprises of real life. In a more amateurish film, I could have predicted what these characters would do at every turn.
I was constantly surprised. What I expected to happen, never did. Not once.
Culkin will surely be nominated for his laugh-out-loud, in your face performance as Benji. There are many, many layers to this man and Culkin conveys many of them. Some of his quite moments are the best. In one powerful conversation between the cousins, I waited for Culkin's Benji to respond with a conventional, comforting reply. His silence is ten times as powerful. Superb.
Eisenberg is terrific here as well, often playing straight man to Culkin's Benji. His eccentricities as David never overwhelm the character into a corner. The boys learn a lot from each other, but the quiet, powerful final scene leaves you pondering what's ahead.
If Eisenberg isn't nominated for best Original Screenplay, I'd be shocked.
I love "Planes. Trains and Automobiles" and it's a mandatory watch every holiday season. A REAL PAIN shares some basic DNA with John Hughes film in the discovery of depth within its comic foil and the tightly wound businessman who learns a thing or two from his travel companion.
Yet the films are as different as night & day, or frankly, David & Benji.
Loaded with clever dialogue, true storytelling and laughs, A REAL PAIN is a real find and gets an A.
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