By Brontë H. Lacsamana, Reporter
Movie Review
A Real Pain
Directed by Jesse Eisenberg
AN UNDERRATED gem from the many great films 2024 had to offer is Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, a frenetic but sincere look at a mismatched friendship between cousins. It’s a film that questions our ability to measure something as universal yet subjective as pain.
For many, pain is a necessary burden that we must deal with to function better in our day-to-day lives, to be regulated and hidden away unacknowledged. For others, it is an overwhelming proof of existence that is too real to be suppressed, so much so that the act of softening and sugarcoating it seems disingenuous.
A Real Pain presents these two extremes in the form of two cousins, David (played by Eisenberg) and Benji (played by Kieran Culkin), who each truly love one another but at times just do not fully understand or know how to ease each other’s pain. The film shows them reuniting for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother who was a Holocaust survivor, in a narrative that is part-travelogue, part-quirky adventure comedy.
When the two encounter bumps in their friendship, their family and personal histories come to light, with Culkin (known for his scene-stealing role as Roman in Succession) garnering acclaim as the similarly unhinged Benji.
As third-generation Jewish-Americans who are confronted with the suffering of their ancestors in a Holocaust tour of Poland, the context of what pain is for each person is transposed to a larger scale.
Eisenberg’s David tempers his obsessive-compulsive tendencies in silence while Culkin’s Benji wears his rollercoaster-like discontent with the world on his sleeve. While the trope of the ignorant American being a tourist in a more sophisticated European land is a tried and tested one, the valuable lessons these two characters learn here are navigated very well. The two cousins learn of the Jewish practice of leaving a stone on a grave to remember a lost loved one by, and use it to honor their own grandmother on the doorstep of her old house — to the chagrin of actual Polish natives who see it as a safety hazard, albeit an endearing gesture.
On the surface, it may seem like this production was a smart choice for the Polish Film Council, with the elegantly shot scenery of the city of Warsaw and of the Polish countryside showcased to promote their tourism. All the while, the music of Chopin plays, as if with heartfelt empathy for the suffering of its characters. Cutting through the seemingly leisurely pace that allows one to yearn for a vacation there is the familiar nervous energy that Eisenberg brings, channeled into his beautifully written and directed film, as well as his acting in it. His triple role in this production is admirable on its own.
Then of course, there’s Culkin. His chaotic blur masking human vulnerability at its most potent takes centerstage, in a performance that I find similar, but of a different flavor of unstable as his Succession character — deserving of recognition in this awards season. But awards are not really needed to appreciate this film that is equal parts sharp and gentle; perhaps what is better is taking a moment to pause and leave little stones to mark the bouts of pain that serve as our proof of existence. It doesn’t matter that the practice is an odd derivative of an old tradition (as is the entire American identity, after all). Sometimes a meaningful gesture is all people need.
A Real Pain is now showing in Ayala Malls Cinemas.