‘A Real Pain’ Stuns With Intense Character-Driven Emotional Depth

Those who attended this year’s Sundance Film Festival didn’t shout enough about Jesse Eisenberg’s new film A Real Pain.

The premise is simple: two cousins travel to Poland to learn about their Jewish heritage and visit their deceased grandmother’s home. But the simplicity of the story opens the material to a host of deeply felt emotional truths about family, depression, human connection, and yes, generational trauma. The magic of the film, considering those hefty themes, is that it’s actually incredibly funny, anchored by two outstanding performances from writer/director Eisenberg and Succession Emmy winner Kieran Culkin.

Eisenberg directs the film with a sly, subtle hand. Yes, it’s a bit of a Poland travelogue with gorgeously filmed sequences highlighting some of the most Nazi-impacted areas of the Jewish people. He does take us into a concentration camp in a mostly quiet sequence that allows for proper respect. He wisely allows the weight of the moment sink in without on-screen characters interfering. But the real strength in his direction is his Mike Nichols-esqe manner of pulling pitch perfect performances from his company of actors. Every person in the film has their moment of heartfelt drama and rich comedy. That aspect of direction is perhaps the least celebrated but seemingly most difficult to get perfectly right. Eisenberg does that here in spades while giving a strong performance on his own.

But the film belongs to Culkin whose borderline manic-depressive character offers the actor a full experience to play. Culkin leverages his natural charisma to ingratiate the audience in what would be a horribly annoying presence in any other actor’s hands. We laugh at his unending sarcasm and his head-scratching oddities — all earmarks of his winning Roman Roy performance. But here, he leans into the undercurrents of emotional trauma plaguing this person stuck at a crossroads. You may laugh at him, deservedly so because he’s goddamn funny, but you’re likely doing it through misty eyes. It’s a bravo, brilliant performance, the best of Culkin’s career, that deserves every accolade coming to him.

I expected to like A Real Pain, but I didn’t anticipate how intensely it would move me. Eisenberg’s perfect script, likely the best of the year, holds so many nuggets of real truth that I instantly wanted to read it after the film. One dialogue sequence in particular gutted me in ways I’m not sure I’m comfortable sharing. His character laments the wildly popular reactions to Culkin’s charisma, and (paraphrasing) says, “I’d love to know what it’s like to walk into a room like that.” It’s such a razor-sharp observation about introverts that it blew me away. The film is full of moments like that.

Do not miss A Real Pain. It will stay with you long after you leave the theater, fighting back tears of laughter and of sorrow.

A Real Pain opens in limited release starting November 1.