A Real Pain Review

A Real Pain (2024) Film Review from the 62nd Annual New York Film Festival, a movie directed by Jesse Eisenberg, written by Jesse Eisenberg, and starring Kieran Culkin, Jesse Eisenberg, Will Sharpe, Daniel Oreskes, Liza Sadovy, Kurt Egyiawan, and Jennifer Grey.

The seemingly ageless and ever-uptight (at least in 99% of his film roles) Jesse Eisenberg’s new film, A Real Pain, makes a clear and concise case on why we should all take him seriously as a writer-director. This sophomore swing from Eisenberg flexes serious muscle both artistically and emotionally, and it takes the viewer on a ride through grief, family history, and Poland without ever holding our hands and dragging us along.

Eisenberg’s feature-length directorial debut came in 2022 with When You Finish Saving the World. Perhaps it’s because I wasn’t reviewing films at the time, but, admittedly, it was a movie that flew under my radar. Regardless of how well that film fared, there is certainly no sophomore slumping here with his second picture.

A Real Pain centers around two estranged cousins, David (Eisenberg in an all too classic role for him) and Benji (the insanely endearing, Kieran Culkin), as they embark on a Holocaust trip through Poland. It was a trip planned by their recently deceased grandmother, who wanted the two, once attached at the hip cousins, to explore the roots of their family lineage. David is a Brooklyn-professional type who sells online ad banners and has a loving wife and child, while Benji lives in Binghamton and has weed shipped to their hotel in Poland so they can get stoned along the way. Both lead roles are tailormade to these actors’ strengths. For anyone familiar with Jesse Eisenberg’s work, there is built-in familiarity with David. The way he cuts his phrases fast and short. Keeping all his stress pent up in his scarecrow-like shoulders. Whether Eisenberg is fighting zombies, developing a social media platform, or exploring his Jewish family lineage in Poland, his uptight and obsessive-compulsive characters always deliver the goods, and he does again here.

Their Holocaust trip is filled out with a wonderful supporting cast who are along on their own personal journeys. It was awesome to see Jennifer Grey back on the big screen as the newly divorced Marica, and Kurt Egyiawan, who turns in a dynamite performance as Eloge, an African refugee who converted to Judaism on his own. The relationship between our two leads and the rest of their travel group is developed well in a brief amount of time. They come across as human beings before movie characters, and in a film that deals with weighty topics like A Real Pain does, it helps ground it emotionally.

Eisenberg’s eye is strong behind the camera. Never trying to do too much, you get the sense that he has a real understanding of filmmaking as a whole. The way the characters serve the script, the way the script serves the screen, and the way the audience interacts with all three. It’s a credit to him as an artist to be able to weave it all together while starring in the film as well. You get the sense that working with filmmakers like Noah Baumbach and David Fincher taught Eisenberg a few things.

Bits of comedy are peppered through the film, mostly from the mouth of cousin Benji. It works most of the time, but I did find moments where Culkin’s performance as the “stoner dude” was almost too brash and bordered on unreality. That comes down to scripting, because his performance and delivery are spot on, but at times he comes off as being too over the top. It plays well against the stiff as brick David, but it was a bit try hard at times.

A Real Pain does a standup job on an artistic and emotional level. Families are complicated and history is scary, but Eisenberg wields both with a steady hand to deliver a hell of a sophomore film.

Rating: 7.5/10

Leave your thoughts on this A Real Pain review and the film below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons. Readers seeking more New York Film Festival news can visit our New York Film Festival Page, our Film Festival Page, and our Film Festival Facebook Page.

Readers seeking more film reviews can visit our Movie Review Page, our Movie Review Twitter Page, and our Movie Review Facebook Page.

Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Mobile App, Google News, Feedly, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit, Telegram, Mastodon, Flipboard, and Threads.