Euronews Culture's Film of the Week: 'A Real Pain' - A Holocaust tour full of laughs and heart

After the disaster that was Julia von Heinz’s Treasure last year, the thought of another road movie delving into hereditary trauma and the legacy of the Holocaust, featuring a mismatched family duo, was not an appealing prospect.

Thankfully, A Real Pain is everything Treasure failed to be.

Instead of dealing with mawkish musings, actor-writer-director Jesse Eisenberg has delivered a frequently hilarious buddy movie that seamlessly doubles up as a heartfelt drama about remembrance and the perception of pain.

His second feature behind the camera, after 2022’s When You Finish Saving The World, follows two Jewish-American cousins. There's Benji (Kieran Culkin), a gregarious loudmouth with no apparent filter or care for social discomfort, and David (Eisenberg), an uptight family man. Both travel to Poland on a guided memorial trip (led by a perfectly cast Will Sharpe as a British guide), which takes them to the Majdanek concentration camp. They are there to pay tribute to their late grandmother, and their group outing takes an even more personal turn when the duo confront their family’s history with the Holocaust as they visit the childhood home the late gran fled during World War II.

The set up may be simple, and the mismatched dynamic between the two central protagonists sounds very familiar; however, Eisenberg knows what he’s doing and displays a shrewd understanding of the sweet spot where poignancy and hilarity co-exist without cancelling each other out. His script, both funny and moving, knows when to lean into serious matters without deploying manufactured sniffles and when to laugh at itself without indulging in cheap fish-out-of-water gags.

This tonal grasp is matched by the performances, as both Eisenberg and Culkin effectively inject the scenes with their trademark wit and crucially know when to dial things down to make moments unexpectedly beautiful. They are central to A Real Pain’s appeal, with Eisenberg gamely playing the straight man to Culkin’s brash and volatile man-child who you simultaneously want to drink with and scream at. The latter is hoovering up the awards for his impeccable turn as Benji, and rightly so. (You can bet he'll nab the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in March.) Culkin dexterously balances narcissism with twitchy charm, keeping the audience at a distance with an obnoxious facade, but lets the viewer in enough to understand that behind the mask overflows sensitivity and a wrestling with mental illness.

However, it’s a performance that can only work if the live-wire comedian has a decent foil, so kudos to Eisenberg for giving his co-star the space to scene-steal.

Both actors, while not subverting many expectations when it comes to the way they play these characters, bounce off each other well. Through their bickersome chemistry decries a fascinating examination of generational trauma and its legacy.

Which brings us to the title. Benji may initially be the titular pain, but as the trip progresses, it forces him to ponder the weight of historical suffering. In doing so, he and David take a step-back and allow themselves to contextualize individual problems. Without childishly dismissing personal tribulations as bagatelle compared to greater tragedy like the Holocaust, the film manages to ponder how historical pain can simultaneously contribute to and clash with modern conceptions of trauma and performative suffering.

Considering the tragedies of the modern world and how wallowing all too frequently becomes social currency when it isn't checked or belittled, it’s a bold and important topic to unpack. When the reflection culminates in a wonderfully bittersweet climax, A Real Pain fully shines a moving and often insightful work from an actor who has signalled he's a writer-director to look out for.

A Real Pain is out now in the UK, Ireland, Spain and Germany. The European rollout continues into mid-February.