Shadows on the Wall | A Real Pain

A Real Pain

dir-scr Jesse Eisenberg
prd Ewa Puszczynska, Jennifer Semler, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Ali Herting, Dave McCary
with Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy, Daniel Oreskes, Marek Kasprzyk, Jakub Pruski, Jakub Gasowski, Ellora Torchia, Banner Eisenberg
release US 1.Nov.24,
UK 10.Jan.25
24/Poland 1h30

SUNDANCE FILM FEST

Is it streaming?

A smart, observational script and offbeat performances give this comedy-drama an extra kick as it explores deep ideas about identity and connection. Actor-filmmaker Jesse Eisenberg adeptly generates a mix of emotions as a group of disparate tourists travel around Poland, focussing on two cousins who are as close as brothers. Their antics are both hilarious and darkly involving, offering sharp insight into how we see ourselves and each other.

After their beloved grandmother dies, David (Eisenberg) and his cousin Benji (Culkin) take a Jewish heritage tour to see where she lived in pre-war Poland. David lives in New York with his wife and young son, while Benji drifts around, both the life of the party and exasperatingly annoying. He quickly causes ripples in the tour group, which includes British guide James (Sharpe), divorcee Marcia (Grey), Rwandan survivor Eloge (Egyiawan) and retired couple Diane and Mark (Sadovy and Oreskes). As they visit historical sites, including a Nazi death camp, the cousins find their connection challenged.

Eisenberg has smartly woven elements from his own life into this story, so it feels unusually personal. Only weeks apart in age, David and Benji are clearly very close even if they have grown into very different men. So there's a remarkable push and pull between them, as love and respect mingle with frustration and concern. As back-stories emerge, the silly tone softens into a warmer comedy with strongly resonant emotional beats, all while delving into ancestral history.

This tour group is a wonderful makeshift family, as Eisenberg and Culkin play distinct levels of engagement with each of the others. David is on meds for obsessive-compulsive tendencies and struggles to let things go, while Benji is often shockingly gregarious, winning over the others with goofy antics before stunning them to silence with an ill-timed comment. Sharpe is terrific as the likeable guide who has never really considered the deeper impact of this tour. And Grey and Egyiawan make their side roles particularly vivid.

Underscoring the plot are profound ideas about how family relationships require more understanding and patience than others. And Eisenberg and Culkin express a complex blend of emotions. Envy, affection, impatience and yearning wash across David's face, while Benji is blithely removed from people around him but feels emotions intensely. So this trip forces them (and us) to examine their responses to each other, realising that being family means that we are something very much more than friends.

themes, language 14.Oct.24

R E A D E R R E V I E W S

Still waiting for your comments ... don't be shy.