A Real Pain Review: The Gift of Family Trauma
Theatrical Movie Review - Drama/Comedy
Making calculated efforts about when and where to feel your emotions can be a healthy choice for people who might otherwise tend to be controlled by said emotions. However, in A Real Pain, writer and director Jesse Eisenberg examines how that practice can ultimately be harmful if you refuse to acknowledge those emotions at some point.
Following the death of their grandmother, cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) take a trip together to visit their grandmother’s ancestral home in Poland. They join a tour of Poland and various Jewish landmarks led by James (Will Sharpe), along with other Jewish people, all there to find some connection to the atrocities their people faced during the Holocaust. While the nervous yet professionally put-together David walks through the tour closed off to the reality of what he is observing, Benji fully immerses himself in the experience.
A Real Pain asks if there is a correct way to process the trauma that we experience. Benji is very open with his emotions, which has some positive impacts - he is able to convince James that he needs to engage more with the information that he is presenting. He connects with Marcia (Jennifer Grey), a woman struggling with loneliness following her divorce. But we also hear stories of how his lack of control was the cause of significant issues for his family.
This is a relatively small cast, but the standouts in the group are definitely Grey, Sharpe, and Kurt Egyiawan, who played Eloge, a Rwandan convert to Judaism. For a film that is focused on a family relationship, they served as helpful surrogates for the audience, watching from a distance. Eisenberg gives a thoughtful and restrained performance, which plays beautifully against the kinetic and unbridled energy that Culkin brings to his character.
The pair do an excellent job of creating a sense of family, particularly family that was close at one point but has drifted apart. In their interactions, we see the easy way you have with people you’ve known your whole life. But they also highlight the disconnect that can happen over time when you no longer regularly communicate.
A Real Pain is more a slice of life than a full narrative, and those can be tricky to pull off. The end of this movie will no doubt leave some unsatisfied, but it plays into the larger theme of dropping into someone’s life when you haven’t been in contact with them and trying to find your footing. There is a kind of rhythm that exists in those spaces, but also a feeling of imbalance, and the film echoes that beautifully.
As we come upon the holidays following a contentious election season, emotions can run high. It may seem prudent to simply push emotions down, but A Real Pain asks us if we could do something else. Instead of ignoring them or fully indulging our worst instincts, maybe it would be better to try to express those emotions in a healthier way. To feel our pain, but also to try to let that pain go.
This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on November 17, 2024.
“A Real Pain asks if there is a correct way to process the trauma that we experience” - yes 👏 it very much does. Great review!
Wonderful review! I loved this movie so much!