On the surface, A Real Pain, directed by Jesse Eisenberg and starring him and Kieran Culkin, is the story of two cousins who journey to find out more about Poland after their grandmother’s death. They aim to learn more about Poland under Nazi occupation to see what life was like during  her youth as a Jew during the Holocaust. However, the journey is more about David, played by Eisenberg, and Benji, played by Culkin, trying to find their footing after a major event in their lives. The movie is well-directed and the technical aspects are all fine, but A Real Pain is more about what you feel rather than what you see. Therefore, my 4 points for this film will be about the 4 themes I felt it touched on well. Although not explicitly focusing on spoilers, details of the movie will be touched on throughout the article. I’d suggest watching A Real Pain before reading this.

Point 1: Insecurity

Although the theme of insecurity presents itself in many layers, the main one is what in my opinion the point of the movie really is: how do we reconcile our problems in the face of struggles that are unspeakable, whether suffered by our ancestors or others elsewhere in the world today? Eisenberg aptly does not try to answer this question, but rather lets it breathe and explores it throughout the movie.

David is insecure about his anxiety and his personality in the face of Benji, but relies on his well-established life that tick off all the checkboxes for what success is to soothe himself. In the first half of the movie, David is the one that seems level-headed and doing the “right thing” whether that’s not taking pictures in front of a Holocaust memorial or trying to be reasonable about not smoking weed with his cousin late at night. But as the story unravels, you realize he’s being held back by his own insecurity about how he’ll be perceived and how his life has been all about doing all the right things without stopping to question whether he wants to do them.

Benji meanwhile displays his insecurity by projecting on others. He is the antithesis of David in that he externalizes it and makes a point of blaming others for not doing things the right way. It’s an internal struggle that he’s not able to handle so his way of dealing with it is telling others they’re doing the wrong things to make him feel better about the situation. This is best seen in the scene where they are taking the train. Benji rails against the group for riding in first class and storms off to sit at the back of the train but when riding the train back, he has no issues with doing it. It may seem hypocritical at first, and it is, but I think it’s a great way of showing the internal conflict that Benji’s insecurity with the experience of being in Poland is experiencing.

Point 2: Envy

It has been some time since David last hung out with Benji despite being closer when they were younger. The drift has happened for a variety of reasons, but both in their own ways are excited to have this time together again. The main reason for the drift has come from the different trajectories their respective lives have taken.

David has it all figured out. He has a well-paying job, a wife and child, a home, and a steady routine life that he seems to tout his happiness with. But it’s like that thing when people keep telling you they’re happy so much that you start to wonder if they really are. Why would you need to constantly bring it up and flaunt it if you were truly satisfied with your life? 

Meanwhile, you can see on Benji’s face when David shows him the video of his daughter that there is great happiness for David but a tinge of sadness too for where David is in life compared to himself. Benji constantly puts down David’s job and life, but he himself doesn’t seem to be all that happy with his own very different life. 

As the story progresses, you start seeing the cracks in their own satisfaction with their lives and their longing for what the other has. David wishes he could be like Benji: charismatic, spontaneous, carefree. Meanwhile, Benji sees that David has a family around him waiting for him and caring about him. In both cases, you see each other’s envy for the aspects of the other’s life they can’t or don’t have. It epitomizes the saying “the grass is greener on the other side.” It’s a feeling that anyone watching can relate to and everyone can think about that cousin or friend they had when they were younger that they were so close to despite being so different but now as adults it seems untenable to ever be that close due to those same differences later in life.

Point 3: Grief

Grief is the main theme explored in A Real Pain, and it comes in many forms. 

There is the very obvious element of the death of David and Benji’s grandmother with both processing it very differently, colouring in their personalities as well as their relationship with their deceased grandparent. We see Benji’s mercuriality being dialled up to extremes in certain places stemming from that loss while David tries to do what he thinks is right and respectful without seeming to give in to his emotions until it bursts out. 

Then there is the grief that comes from the setting and context of the story. David and Benji as well as the rest of the tour group visit points of interest of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust. This grief is also explored through the other group members. The members talk about their family members’ experience and why they are there. The most interesting element to me in the group was the Rwandan character who had himself survived the genocide and later converted to judaism. Contrasting the experience of the otherwise wealthy, comfortable members of the group who were just “tourists” to that kind of experience with someone who had gone through it himself added an element of viscerality to what everyone was witnessing. On this point, I’d like to commend Eisenberg’s direction in very emotionally loaded locations and how he portrayed them in the film.

Finally, there was the grief of losing yourself and those around you. Not to death, but to the routine of life. Despite the contentious push and pull of the relationship between David and Benji, in the end, what it boiled down to was how they missed each other and that part of their life when they were close. It’s not something they can get back anymore. You can’t go back to being that person or rekindling things that could only exist in that time in your life. Wrestling with that loss is not easy when you’re faced with it. It’s easy to put it aside and not think about it as you go through life, but when you’re forced to face it by being together 24/7 for a week, there is no choice but to process that grief.

Point 4: Moving On

In the end, going through the above three inevitably brings you to how you process them and eventually move on. My understanding of A Real Pain was that moving on isn’t the destination; it’s the journey. You don’t achieve the state of having moved on, you go through the steps to move on. The whole movie in the end is that journey. 

David and Benji reconcile with who they are today and how they got there from who they used to be. The experience of learning about their grandmother and the holocaust in Poland is the perfect backdrop to separate their own issues and gain perspective. If they were to try to talk it out back home, they wouldn’t be able to get to the final conclusions that they reach. Sometimes, you need something bigger than yourself to remind you that the conflicts you’re embroiled in are not as significant as they seem. A Real Pain doesn’t diminish them either though. It just asks the question: are things really as irreconcilable as they seem? 

In the end, as odd as it seems to leave the two characters where they end up at the end of the movie, I think it epitomizes how they both realized that they are who they are and that’s ok.

I honestly loved this movie. This year has been the year for movies that really hit me with their simplicity and stories that you can find in your own life. There are no fancy camera tricks or anything to wow you, but it’s a story worth experiencing to feel something and maybe even reflect on your own life. Do yourself a favour and carve out an hour and a half in your day to just sit through a couple of great performances.