A Real Pain — Sundance Review — Sucharita Tyagi

Sometimes the only way to go forward is to go back.

First cousins David and Benji Kaplan head out on a tour of Poland, with an organized, chaperoned group, to learn more about their own cultural Jewish heritage, and the holocaust, and try to find the house their recently deceased grandmother had to flee from during the Second World War.

David has a wife and child, a boring stable job, makes good money, and probably owns a home. Benji on the other hand is in between jobs, has challenges with feeling secure and safe, and is the kind of person who reaches the airport early not to be in time for the flight, but just to look at the strange people. Perhaps trying to justify his own intrusive thoughts, by looking at people and imagining their lives being just as bizarre or difficult as his.

On the tour, as David and Benji spend time learning about their grandmother’s country Poland, they also reconnect, trying to patch the new distance between these once close cousins. An endeavor that’s not easy for the straight-laced, and frantic David, who has seemingly achieved all the things a successful member of society must, but is also fully aware has more to lose. If the weed Benji has managed to smuggle inside Poland gets them caught, David doesn’t just stand to lose his job, his worst fear of having to accept himself as inadequate, and less than perfect could come to life. Benji at worst will have a deportation or some sort of criminal dishonor on his record, which as a white American man, doesn’t seem to bother him much.

In an interview at the Sundance Film Festival, Jesse Eisenberg mentioned he’s on his way to receiving Polish citizenship. This subject couldn’t possibly be closer to his heart, the house Benji and David end up at, Jesse Eisenberg said while introducing the film, was the real house his own grandmother once lived at. Clearly, to look back on where he comes from is an important personal journey for the filmmaker, and as such, the film feels the best kind of authentic, real, and not a manipulative tear-jerker.

In fact, Eisenberg seems very aware that while he WANTS to tell the story of his ancestors having to leave their homes behind as a persecuted people, he and some other Jewish Americans like him, live a life where such dark and terrible times only seem like stories. With his cousin Benji, David wants to go to Poland to feel some sort of pain, some sort of guilt, some sort of justification that the boring and mundane life he now leads, is what in fact his grandmother would have wanted for him. The quietness of peace, the safety of boring.

He also knows his grandmother would have wanted him to stay close to cousin Benji, a man who is seemingly more aware and hence more affected by the world and its myriad miseries. Benji says things like “We’re in Poland we shouldn’t have to pay for a train ticket”, almost unironically, a thought that would never ever cross David’s mind.

Kieran Culkin’s performance weirdly felt like a strange extension of his award-winning role as Roman on Succession. It’s almost as if after Tom Wambsgans’ takeover of the company, Roman decides to quit the rich person life, decides he wants a different personality, and reconnects with an old friend. Much like Roman, occasionally Benji too cannot accurately ascertain the feelings he has towards his cousin. If they weren’t related, I would guess there was a weird romantic energy there. Benji is entitled, and unpredictable, has outbursts in nearly every social situation, then feels guilty about being weird, and yet underneath is a kind boy just looking for the love of an elder, a brother, and a parental figure. I’m not saying it’s a bad acting performance, one can’t cast aspersions on the actor’s ability. Perhaps Benji and Romulus just are too similar, as crafted by their writers, a little too similar in their pain, and escapist ways of dealing with it.

I do love the title, A Real Pain — on the trip the most pain is Benji, and then perhaps David’s pain over his guilt for not being there for his cousin. And then of course the pain of being on this trip, remembering those who lost their lives in the holocaust, and the price paid by those who made it out.

A Real Pain isn’t the most stirring film I’ve watched on the subject, but I’m still glad I did catch it at Sundance. I do believe some deal was achieved at the festival, so hopefully you’ll get to watch it soon.