A Real Pain
I liked it quite a lot. It has something small, simple and very human that works very well: two cousins travelling through Poland to connect with the memory of their grandmother and, at the same time, clashing constantly because each of them carries pain in a different way. It is not a huge film, but it is one of those that seem light and then leave more behind than they first suggest.
The central pair carries everything. Jesse Eisenberg stays within his register of nerves, stiffness, anxiety and control, but here that fits David very well. He is a correct, polite, contained man, the kind who tries to make everything go smoothly even though inside he is full of discomfort. Opposite him, Benji is the exact opposite: expansive, unpredictable, charming, unbearable and deeply sad.
Kieran Culkin steals many scenes, and that matters because the character could have been only “the weird cousin who embarrasses everyone”. Benji interrupts, makes people uncomfortable, jokes when he should not, invades other people’s spaces and seems unable to behave as expected. But beneath that energy there is real pain, a wound he does not know how to put in order. That is why he can be irritating and magnetic at the same time.
What is interesting is that the film does not judge either of them easily. David seems like the functional adult, but he is also jealous, repressed and emotionally cowardly. Benji seems like the disaster, but often he is the one who first senses falseness, empty solemnity or the need to really look at people. One protects himself by controlling everything; the other breaks in front of everyone.
I liked the Jewish cemetery scene a lot. When Benji makes the guide be quiet so they can remember the people buried there, I did not see it as just another outburst. It is uncomfortable, of course, but it also makes sense: there are moments when tourist explanation can become noise, an educated way of stepping over pain. Benji, with all his chaotic manners, understands that.
The film succeeds in treating the Holocaust without turning it into a solemn postcard or a museum lesson. The journey has something of memory tourism, and that could have gone very wrong, but Eisenberg finds a delicate tone: there is humor, awkwardness, guilt, curiosity, shame and respect. The characters do not fully know how to behave before that past, and that uncertainty feels honest to me.
I also liked the music. That Chopin tied to Poland gives the film a very special melancholy, and it also connected me with my own memories of learning music as a child. It is not a soundtrack that underlines things crudely, but a presence that accompanies the journey with an elegant, almost familiar sadness.
David’s outburst in the restaurant is one of the best scenes. Everything comes out there: affection, anger, envy, exhaustion, guilt and the feeling of loving someone very much while also being consumed by them. David does not hate Benji; he loves him, but he is tired of orbiting around his chaos. And at the same time it hurts him that Benji has an ease with other people that he does not.
That ambivalence is very well observed. There are families in which one person seems to carry stability and another charisma, one rules and the other emotion. The film understands how unfair that can feel for both of them. Benji suffers, but David also suffers beside Benji. And neither of them knows how to translate that pain well.
It may feel like a very written film, even a little calculated in its balance between laughter and sadness, but that did not bother me much because the emotions arrive cleanly. It is brief, direct and does not need big twists. Its strength is in the friction, in the silences after a joke, in the discomfort of not knowing what to do with inherited grief.
The travel group also helps. They are not extremely deep characters, but they give context and allow us to see how Benji affects everyone: sometimes he lights up the scene, sometimes he sabotages it, sometimes he says exactly what nobody dares to say. That expansive effect explains why David loves him and why he cannot take any more of him.
What I value most is that it does not offer an easy solution. The journey does not cure anyone or magically put the cousins’ lives in order. Returning to the place of family pain does not guarantee understanding everything. Sometimes it only allows you to look at it a little better, to accept that some wounds are inherited and that each person carries them however they can.
In the end, for me it remains a very beautiful, sad and restrained dramedy. It made me smile, made me uncomfortable and touched me more than I expected. Kieran Culkin is splendid, Eisenberg knows how to accompany him without competing, and the film finds a difficult tone: light without being superficial, painful without becoming melodramatic. A small story about family, memory and pain that stays inside.
The central pair carries everything. Jesse Eisenberg stays within his register of nerves, stiffness, anxiety and control, but here that fits David very well. He is a correct, polite, contained man, the kind who tries to make everything go smoothly even though inside he is full of discomfort. Opposite him, Benji is the exact opposite: expansive, unpredictable, charming, unbearable and deeply sad.
Kieran Culkin steals many scenes, and that matters because the character could have been only “the weird cousin who embarrasses everyone”. Benji interrupts, makes people uncomfortable, jokes when he should not, invades other people’s spaces and seems unable to behave as expected. But beneath that energy there is real pain, a wound he does not know how to put in order. That is why he can be irritating and magnetic at the same time.
What is interesting is that the film does not judge either of them easily. David seems like the functional adult, but he is also jealous, repressed and emotionally cowardly. Benji seems like the disaster, but often he is the one who first senses falseness, empty solemnity or the need to really look at people. One protects himself by controlling everything; the other breaks in front of everyone.
I liked the Jewish cemetery scene a lot. When Benji makes the guide be quiet so they can remember the people buried there, I did not see it as just another outburst. It is uncomfortable, of course, but it also makes sense: there are moments when tourist explanation can become noise, an educated way of stepping over pain. Benji, with all his chaotic manners, understands that.
The film succeeds in treating the Holocaust without turning it into a solemn postcard or a museum lesson. The journey has something of memory tourism, and that could have gone very wrong, but Eisenberg finds a delicate tone: there is humor, awkwardness, guilt, curiosity, shame and respect. The characters do not fully know how to behave before that past, and that uncertainty feels honest to me.
I also liked the music. That Chopin tied to Poland gives the film a very special melancholy, and it also connected me with my own memories of learning music as a child. It is not a soundtrack that underlines things crudely, but a presence that accompanies the journey with an elegant, almost familiar sadness.
David’s outburst in the restaurant is one of the best scenes. Everything comes out there: affection, anger, envy, exhaustion, guilt and the feeling of loving someone very much while also being consumed by them. David does not hate Benji; he loves him, but he is tired of orbiting around his chaos. And at the same time it hurts him that Benji has an ease with other people that he does not.
That ambivalence is very well observed. There are families in which one person seems to carry stability and another charisma, one rules and the other emotion. The film understands how unfair that can feel for both of them. Benji suffers, but David also suffers beside Benji. And neither of them knows how to translate that pain well.
It may feel like a very written film, even a little calculated in its balance between laughter and sadness, but that did not bother me much because the emotions arrive cleanly. It is brief, direct and does not need big twists. Its strength is in the friction, in the silences after a joke, in the discomfort of not knowing what to do with inherited grief.
The travel group also helps. They are not extremely deep characters, but they give context and allow us to see how Benji affects everyone: sometimes he lights up the scene, sometimes he sabotages it, sometimes he says exactly what nobody dares to say. That expansive effect explains why David loves him and why he cannot take any more of him.
What I value most is that it does not offer an easy solution. The journey does not cure anyone or magically put the cousins’ lives in order. Returning to the place of family pain does not guarantee understanding everything. Sometimes it only allows you to look at it a little better, to accept that some wounds are inherited and that each person carries them however they can.
In the end, for me it remains a very beautiful, sad and restrained dramedy. It made me smile, made me uncomfortable and touched me more than I expected. Kieran Culkin is splendid, Eisenberg knows how to accompany him without competing, and the film finds a difficult tone: light without being superficial, painful without becoming melodramatic. A small story about family, memory and pain that stays inside.
Mini Review: I liked it quite a lot. It has something small, simple and very human that works very well: two cousins travelling through Poland to connect with the memory of their grandmother and, at the same time, clashing constantly because each of them carries pain in a different way. It is not a huge film, but it is one of those that seem light and then leave more behind than they first suggest. The central pair carries everything. Jesse Eisenberg stays...
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