SCREEN SHOT - A Real Pain

David (Jesse Eisenberg) and his cousin Benji ( Keiran Culkin ) have recently lost their Grandma. Of the two, Benji was the closer to her and has been heartbroken since her death. She left them some money  So the two cousins book themselves on a guided tour to travel through Poland to visit the Holocaust sites and to find the house where there Grandmother originally lived. Benji and his Grandmother were similar spirited individuals, quite intense and opinionated. And he's had a tough time since her death. David sees the trip as a way to support him at a difficult time and renew their bond. 

The film opens with a shot of Benji sat in the airport lounge quietly watching people come and go, intercut with David neurotically leaving voicemails for Benji, keeping him informed of where he is and when he'll arrive at the airport. Its obvious the two cousin's personalities are chalk and cheese. Benji is charming, interested in other people, comfortably outgoing and easily breaks down social barriers. Whilst David is paralysed by social anxiety and is jealous of his cousin's apparent ease. Finding Benji's openness and frank way of expressing himself deeply embarrassing. Much as he loves him, he thinks his cousin is a real pain. 

The other people in their small touring group, each have their own issues they are dealing with, their own reason for wanting to come and visit the sites of the Holocaust. That these places ought to put their own pain in perspective, but instead appear to amplify them. Benji easily connects and empathises with other people's pain. But Benji as a social being is very different to Benji's internal world, where he really struggles. David sees this outward Benji as a fake facade, and a very effective performance entirely for the benefit for others. For he recently had found Benji after he'd taken an overdose. 

The performances of Eisenberg and Culkin are both so perfectly pitched, as is Eisenberg's film script. Fun and witty, but also emotionally intelligent and very able in quickly touching on great depth. One moment David is all full of the neurotic resentments that Eisenberg is so used to portraying, Then when he's expressing his frustrations with the frankness and rudeness of Benji, he sudden erupts with suppressed anger at Benji, because he doesn't understand why he tried to take his own life. Its one of the most heartfelt and astonishing moment of acting in the entire film, as it erupts so completely unexpectedly out of the blue. 

But the loving beating heart of the movie is all Culkin's Benji. The sort of outgoing uninhibited person perhaps we all would like to aspire to be, but would be too afraid to even try. Culkin's performance is so intuitively acted, really finely judged, full of subtle nuances. He has a quietly expressive face, that is at one turn mysterious, but without guile the next. You can read his thoughts, see the good hearted motives behind the unguarded honesty. Culkin would often not prepare for scenes, preferring to just turn up and respond in the moment to what was going on around him. It was a risky acting strategy, but one that paid huge dividends in the clarity and appropriateness of his performance. Its little wonder its been lauded with awards so frequently. 

A Real Pain, explores a lot of the mixed messages of that term. Who is the real pain? To whom is he a real pain, just to others or to himself. Then there is the irony that they are on a trip visiting the Holocaust sites. And as Benji points out, they are all privileged individuals travelling on a very luxurious train, whereas their dead ancestors were most certainly not. Who has the right to express their real pain here? This is one of the best written and coherently performed films I've seen for quite a while. A Real Pain was quite surprisingly thoughtful and really impressive.

CARROT REVIEW - 8/8