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David Kaplan: Yeah
Story
Mismatched cousins reunite for a tour of Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a different turn when the odd couple’s old tensions resurface in the context of their family history. When Benji and David visit their grandmother’s home in Poland, the site is where Jesse Eisenberg’s real-life ancestors settled in the diaspora. Benji Kaplan: We keep moving, we keep light, we keep agile. Benji Kaplan: The conductor will come by, taking tickets, we tell him we’re going to the bathroom. David Kaplan: Bathroom. Benji Kaplan: He gets to the back of the train, starts walking toward the front looking for stragglers.
Benji Kaplan: Yeah
David Kaplan: Excuse me, are we the stragglers? When he gets to the front, the train will be in the station and we’ll be free. David Kaplan: That’s so stupid. The tickets are probably like twelve dollars. Benji Kaplan: That’s the principle of it. We shouldn’t have to pay for train tickets in Poland. This is our country.
Featured on CBS News Sunday Morning: Episode #4644 (2024)
David Kaplan: No, it’s not, it was our country. They kicked us out because they thought we were cheap. 12 Etudes, Op. 25, No. 3 in F major Written by Frederic Chopin Performed by Tzvi Erez. “We keep moving, we keep light, we keep agile.” Benji Kaplan (Kieran Culkin) A Real Pain is a comedy, yes, expertly crafted by writer/director Jesse Eisenberg, but it’s also a serious drama about the differences between two Jewish cousins traveling through Poland in honor of their recently deceased grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. This buddy film is a study of two disparate characters and their relationship to each other and their Jewish history.
David is the down-to-earth, nerdy, contemplative one, and Benji (Kieran Culkin) is the eccentric chatterbox whose joys are nonetheless worth pondering
David (Eisenberg) is John Milton’s Il Penseroso and Benji is his L’Allegro, two opposites, the former characterized by melancholy and the latter by joy. His advice (above) to David to stay calm while they avoid paying for their train fare is David’s careful thinking combined with Benji’s brashness. Less the bipolar lunatic, Benji is a funny, intelligent man-child, too smart to say stupid things and too immature to tone it down. The film’s sympathetic soul lies in his character, who connects with the other Holocaust tourists in an inspired way that reminds them of him. When they visit a concentration camp, however, hardly a word is spoken: as if the history of the genocide weighs too heavily for words. Only Benji’s words advising the non-Jewish guide James (Will Sharpe) to find real emotion in the statistics he offers make a difference. While Benji can be opinionated, he resonates with the likeable Rwandan Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan), a convert to Judaism, and the middle-aged Marcia (Jennifer Gray), a melancholic waiting to be released from her grief over her divorce.
Writer/director Eisenberg never lets either character earn our censure
Despite Benji’s recent dark and severe turn, David cares for his charismatic, rootless cousin. The director gently shows the complexity of human personality and the differences that family members have, no matter the circumstances. Even more than a balanced portrayal of two wildly different relatives, A Real Pain shows the emotional benefits of L’Allegro and the grounded reality of Il Penseroso. After all, they are blood relatives, almost brothers, who are very different, but under the Holocaust and their grandmother’s story, just like the rest of us trying to understand the horror and joy of life. It’s a buddy movie, but all about words, not action like Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid. This lighthearted comedy-drama should be a serious contender for the Oscars. From Alien: Romulus to Road House, check out some of our favorite posters of 2024.
