Known primarily for his work as an actor, Jesse Eisenberg tried his hand at filmmaking two years ago with his debut, “When You Finish Saving the World”.
Eisenberg takes another stab at the medium and skillfully pierces audiences with his sophomore dramedy, “A Real Pain”. The film centers around estranged cousins David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin), who reconnect by means of a guided tour through Poland in wake of their grandmother’s passing.
“A Real Pain” personifies familial dichotomy in a refreshingly unorthodox manner. Benji is the poster boy for charisma. He lights up any room he enters, yet somehow, he’s plagued by deep-seated self-limitation. David, on the other hand, is a self-reliable family man. Nonetheless, he is severely gauche by nature and yearns to command reverence in ways others are able to, such as his beloved cousin Benji. Together, they make two sides of the same coin.
Culkin claims that Eisenberg cast him as Benji in spite of never seeing any of his work; he didn’t even make him audition, and that honestly sums up how I feel about Kieran Culkin’s performance in this film. Although no stranger to demanding attention and praise (given his performance as Roman Roy in the HBO series “Succession”), Culkin knocks it out of the park as far as ever before. He has unarguably cemented himself as the current face of dramedy and boasts a promising standing for awards season thus far.
Eisenberg initially wrote the character Benji with the intent of playing him, and I couldn’t be gladder that he chose to work alongside Culkin instead. Even though I believe both actors have personalities that coincide firmly with their characters, I think that makes this film all the better. They both clash so familiarly that it’s fascinating to watch at play. You can see the child within them when they’re together, which delivered a genuine cousin dynamic.
The film does an excellent job in portraying how as humans, none of us are immune to pain in its boundless manifestations. Pain can be perceptible but also intangible. It can be reticent but also fervent. This applies to the way we go about our own pain and the way we interpret the pain of others. Eisenberg does an incredible job demonstrating this notion in his writing.
We witness—or perhaps even feel—the pain of those around us and inadvertently appraise our own. In Benji’s presence, David feels like he’s an unworthy candidate for pain. “I know my pain is unexceptional so I don’t burden everyone with it”, he says. Benji prods David, reminding him that when they were younger David used to feel deeply, in a way he no longer allows himself to. Benji takes the concept of life with a grain of salt, living each day in singularity with lack of structure. David loathes Benji for the mere fact that he allows his brimming potential to go to waste. Potential seen by everyone but Benji himself.
“A Real Pain” functions as a manual book on the magnitudes of emotional capacity and the plurality of pain. It serves as a reminder that in experiencing pain collectively we’re granted the privilege to walk each other home.
