Everyone, I’m sure, has known a guy like Benji—he was your old college roommate, or the clown at work, or a kid from childhood that you grew apart from over the years. Benji is a guy that feels all the emotions. He’s funny, vivacious, charming, and entertainingly erratic. He can also be, frankly, kind of exhausting.
In David’s case, Benji is his cousin. As kids, Benji (Keiran Culkin) and David (Jesse Eisenberg) were so close in age that seemed like brothers. As adults, they became estranged, with David settling down with a job, a wife, and a kid, while Benji spun his wheels. Those spinning wheels became a downward spiral when their Polish grandmother (Benji’s closest person in life) passed. Now David and Benji are travelling to Poland pay tribute to their late grandmother, but also, hopefully find their own connection again.
Joining a Holocaust tour, David and Benji are able to fill in painful gaps in their Jewish family’s history, but they also to try to bridge the gap that has been growing between them over the years. The handful of other travelers on the tour (including tour guide Will Sharpe, and other tourists like Jennifer Grey and Kurt Egyiawan) become unwitting spectators to the cousins’ odd dynamic, especially to Benji’s outbursts. When Benji loses it over one too many academic explanations about headstones in a Jewish cemetery, he forcefully reminds the guide that silence and reflection over the lives of real people can actually be a great alternative in such a place. (You know what? He’s right.)
A Real Pain, of course, has a double meaning. Benji can be an exhausting, all-consuming pain-in-the-ass. But through Keiran Culkin’s terrific performance, Benji’s emotional pain is completely transparent as soon as he is not “on” as the most energy-sucking person in the room. Jesse Eisenberg, wearing multiple hats as writer, director, and co-star, plays the straight man to Benji’s tornado. He gets to flex his dramatic muscles in one wonderful, relatable, heartbreaking speech to their travel partners (while Benji is out of the room) giving the unwitting new acquaintances a Cliff Notes background of Benji’s past and their relationship.
But as rewarding for what it is, A Real Pain can’t help but feel, well, slight. At only 90 minutes, it plays somewhat like a short story, or a postcard version of a relationship. As exhausting as Benji is, I felt like we were just getting to know him. Keiran Culkin’s award-worthy lost-boy performance makes us want to pull Benji a little closer.
