A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg, 2024, Poland/USA)

Another production from Fruit Tree, the husband and wife team of Emma Stone and Dave McCary, A Real Pain is the second feature film from Jesse Eisenberg. Eisenberg's first feature, When You Finish Saving the World (2022), was released to little fanfare. In contrast, A Real Pain, with the backing of Fox Searchlight, seems destined - if not for awards - then at least for awards consideration. This is even more interesting considering how slight the film feels. That's not to say it's a poor effort. But even the film's length - a brisk 90 minutes - suggests that it is not aiming to express some deep profundities.

The film centers on American Jewish cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) who embark on a Holocaust tour of Poland to connect to their ancestry. David and Benji are a definitive odd couple, with David's reserved and neurotic nature contrasting throughout the film with Benji's more free-spirited and anarchic style. Yet everything is not always as it seems on the surface, and Benji is harboring more titular "pain" than his initial attitude would suggest. That the film's title is a play on words, referring to both Benji being a "pain" and also a feeling of pain or sorrow, is significant.

It is refreshing to see modern Poland shown from the perspective of an American, although there are almost no actual Polish people featured in the film. Perhaps this is Eisenberg's attention, as the brothers' entire experience of the country is mediated on the surface level by a British tour guide and - to a lesser extent - by other members of the tour whom they befriend. Eisenberg's film feels very New York, and it seems he may become a latter-day Woody Allen (without all the associated baggage). A Real Pain is an enjoyable if slight film.

7/10