The genre of films to which ‘A Real Pain‘ (2024), the second film in which Jesse Eisenberg is (also) behind the camera as director, belongs is quite popular in Israel. Trips to Poland and other countries in Europe where episodes of the Holocaust took place, including visits to death camps, Jewish cemeteries and the remains of ghettos or neighborhoods where Jews lived before World War II, are common experiences and until a few years ago they also represented a kind of coming-of-age ritual for young people in Israel, being supported and organized by high schools. Israeli cinema has also reflected such experiences of confrontation with the continent where the horrors of the Holocaust took place through documentary and fiction films (two in the last year alone). I was therefore very curious to see Jesse Eisenberg‘s film, which is also a kind of road movie, describing such a journey, but one starting from the United States, with American Jewish participants. The comparison is very interesting, even if ‘A Real Pain‘ often shifts the viewer’s attention to the family drama.
David and Benji are cousins, born a few days apart, raised together under the overwhelming influence of their grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to America immediately after the war. Anyone who has had such a grandmother who meant as much or more than their parents (I did!) knows that her personality accompanies the heroes throughout their lives. When the grandmother dies, she leaves them some money as an inheritance for a trip to Poland, to the places from which she flew many decades ago. The journey they embark on will confront them with the memory of the Holocaust, but also with a very transformed Poland in which the horrors of history are left behind for better or worse, with their bandmates who are also (with one exception) second- or third-generation Jewish immigrants, and especially with themselves and the relationships between them. Although raised together, the two cousins are as different as can be. David is a married techie, has a child, has succeeded professionally but seems to have difficulty creating relationships with those around him. Benji is communicative and extroverted, easily makes friends, but his exuberance hides failures, unanswered searches and traumas, including a suicide attempt.
Kieran Culkin gives a formidable performance as Benji while Jesse Eisenberg assumes the role of David with restraint and maturity. Poland is beautifully filmed, with a kind of superficial aesthetic, as a country that is seen through the eyes of casual tourists. Beyond the beautiful images and some tasteful comic passages, with ironies directed at small tourist-cultural conflicts, there is a simmering drama. I suspect that for Jesse Eisenberg this is a personal film, and not just because he is also the author of the script. In many Jewish families, the Holocaust is a permanent presence, always in the background of life experiences and family relationships, even in the second or third generation. A journey like the one the film’s heroes take is an opportunity to confront this very traumatic history, but it does not answer all the questions. This is also the case in the film. David and Benji intensely experience visits to the death camps or cemeteries where their ancestors were buried, while their grandmother’s house does not tell them much about those who lived there. The message conveyed by the grandmother who survived the Holocaust was perhaps that what matters is solidarity and family links. Historical revenge lies in the continuity of life in the post-war world.