A Real Pain delivers some real good filmmaking and an even better Kieran Culkin performance

Pain is the great equalizer. Rich or poor, we all suffer torment. Nobody’s heart is impervious to emotional pain. The way we deal with that pain, though, that’s where variations come into play. Some of us grapple with internal suffering through lashing out at others. Another person may just bottle up all those emotions, never letting them hit the surface. There are endless ways to cope with sorrow puncturing our souls. Some of those maneuvers are unhealthy. A few actually help us grow as people. Nearly all of them are messy. These jagged lives we lead inevitably involve equally messy anguish.

I certainly don’t know how to erase or even masterfully process that sadness. I don’t think anyone does. Least of all the two cousins at the heart of Jesse Eisenberg’s second directorial effort, A Real Pain.

David (Jesse Eisenberg) is nervous. He's on his way to the airport for a flight to Poland and his cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin) won't pick up the phone. Once he arrives at his destination, though, Benji greets him. Crisis averted, these family members are reunited. Now it's time for the duo to get on their plane and head to Poland, where they're planning to engage in a group tour, led by James (Will Sharpe), of the country their grandma lived in. She recently passed away and these descendants are looking to pay tribute to this Holocaust survivor who shaped them so profoundly.

Benji especially had such a strong connection to their deceased grandmother. That's informed his commitment to making this trip a reverential, emotional experience. The more reserved, worrisome David, meanwhile, is just trying to keep up with Benji. Trekking across Poland, these two will encounter lots of reminders of the past. Gigantic statues paying tribute to Jewish fighters or old towns riddled with arcane buildings provide striking odes to yesteryear. However, they’re also going to have to grapple with the here and now. Everybody’s got pain and that includes David and Benji. Like all of us, they just don’t know how to deal with it.

Despite dealing with such heavy material (including a quietly devastating visit to a concentration camp), A Real Pain is an unexpectedly soothing movie. That might just be my peculiarities talking, though. I've often found it quite reassuring to see cinematic reflections of people messily torn up emotionally. It’s nice to not be alone in those experiences. Even fictional characters are going through recognizably relatable psychological torment. A Real Pain's unexpectedly frequently relaxing vibes are enhanced through the gentle, beautiful imagery Eisenberg and cinematographer Michał Dymek focus on during this Poland tour.

Gorgeous daytime shots of our lead characters walking under luscious trees, with beams of sunlight breaking through the openings between branches, just look so radiant and pleasant. There’s sometimes nothing more exhilarating than natural outdoor beauty filling up a movie theater screen. Meanwhile, a montage of shots of various locales in a Polish town (complete with tour guide James explaining what each of these places used to be) is also quite transfixing. Not only are the actual buildings themselves quite interestingly constructed, but this sequence fascinatingly reminds one of how much history hides in plain sight. A domain where history was made in one century can become just another bookshop in 2024.

These stirring images are accompanied by gentle piano-centric orchestral tracks. Given that no original composer is credited on A Real Pain, these tracks must be pre-existing, I’m not sure who crafted them. Forgive my musical illiteracy, I grew up in Texas surrounded by Toby Keith and Florida Georgia Line tunes on the radio! No matter their origin, the inescapable tickling of the ivories in A Real Pain is a great auditory motif. It imbues a classical quality into this distinctly modern story. Our lead characters firmly rooted in 2024 are surrounded by a score evoking the past they’re exploring and grappling with.

It’s easy to just grin and nod to many sections of A Real Pain, especially in its lightest comedic moments involving mismatched David and Benji navigating Poland. However, there is a darker undercurrent to the proceedings nicely embodied through Kieran Culkin’s performance. This man's taken off in recent years thanks to his work as Roman Roy on Succession. However, long before that HBO program, Culkin's always had a gift for exuding a nonchalant attitude with something more complex hiding under the surface. He can exude confidence, but also radiate something resembling tangible, vulnerable humanity. Just look at his scene-stealing work as Wallace Wells in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. There, he inhabited a cool-as-a-cucumber guy who can also exude quiet annoyance or determination in interacting with the film’s titular loser. It was the quintessential Kieran Culkin role.

That gift comes in handy once again for A Real Pain, which sees Culkin playing basically the opposite of Roman Roy. That’s not just because Benji constantly expresses contempt for the rich! Roy was a sullen, shut-off soul who didn’t care about people. Benji, meanwhile, is an extrovert with capital E. He’s always enamored with the lives of others, even strangers at an airport. This figure’s also a much more emotionally outspoken soul compared to the buttoned-up David. If something’s on Benji’s mind, he’s going to express it.

Culkin lends Benji the sort of lived-in execution and deep commitment he’s imbued into his other roles. In this actor’s hands, this man’s opposing personality traits come to life beautifully. At once, Benji is an endearing excitable soul and also often insufferable. Either way, Benji’s not the kind of guy who trips over his words or feet. This is a mesmerizing character whose most vulnerable moments rock your heart. Such displays manifest in fascinatingly messy, varied ways through Culkin’s performance. Sometimes, he expresses that pain in an absorbingly subdued fashion. Other times, he nails Benji’s aggressive, annoying behavior that doubles as a cry for help.

In Eisenberg's 2022 directorial debut When You Finish Saving the World, the fractured mother/son dynamics came off as too broad and lacking specificity. Major kudos to Eisenberg, then, for absolutely crushing his follow-up filmmaking effort. His script lends such realistic nuance to Benji and David’s rapport. Years of wear and tear in their relationship tug on the duo even as they put on smiles for the rest of their tour group. It’s also commendable how confident Eisenberg is (both as a screenwriter and director) with just letting silence consume A Real Pain.

Throughout the feature, wider shots of characters walking through Polish destinations dominate the screen. There’s no dialogue here, just the sound of piano keys or (in the case of one pivotal sequence) no musical accompaniment whatsoever. Fascinating ambiguity seeps into these wordless images. What’s racing through the mind of David as he walks sternly through the streets of a Polish town? What thoughts fill Benji’s psyche while staring at the remains of a concentration camp? It’s often hard to tell what’s going through the brains of our loved ones. A Real Pain mimics that phenomenon deftly in these dialogue-free shots. They’re some of the most striking images in this moving meditation on grappling with torment.