A Real Pain is a Joy to Watch – Film Review

This Movie IS for:

• Those looking for a comedic and semi-realistic portrayal of broken family dynamics in modern society
• Fans of Poland

This Movie is NOT for:

• Anyone who can’t handle awkward social moments under a microscope
• People looking for Jesse Eisenberg to play someone that isn’t an emotionally fragile tech bro

A Brief Review With Minor Spoilers

A Real Pain is about the most cringe-inducing time I have spent watching a movie in recent memory, and yet it manages to be enjoyable. The film harkens back to 2000s dark comedies like Garden State with off-and-on humor tied together by screwed up family dynamics and awkward interactions with strangers. It’s held together by two genuine performances from a pair of actors I would never have put together and now can’t picture apart. Neither is particularly stretching out of their comfort zone, Jesse Eisenberg as an anxious tech nerd and Kieran Culkin as an abrasive, charming, and unstable cousin, but both characters feel like people I have met. This gravity, even in the absurd, makes A Real Pain worth watching.

The plot is a straight A to B journey without so much as a twist along the way. From frame one, we know these cousins are going to Poland, they are visiting grandma’s house, and they’re going to sightsee along the way. Any deviations from this story are purely superficial and that allows the film to focus instead on its characters and the places they visit. The cinematography is beautiful and shows love for Poland’s landscape, history, and people. Despite its humorous tone, places of reverence or horror are treated with silent respect. These moments of respite add an important gravity to the film that grounds both the characters and their family history.

Every person in the film is played as a trope, but none hit so far from reality as to be unbelievable. Culkin’s character is over-the-top with intense mood swings from manic to depressive in a matter of minutes, but as someone who has been around bipolar, it’s not far off the mark. These outbursts also serve as the film’s primary point of tension, eschewing the need for traditional and potentially hacky conflict. I appreciate that the film never stoops to tropes (e.g., overhearing a conversation someone shouldn’t) to create conflict between these cousins. Instead, their pain and problems with one another feel real (see what I did there? I’m not sorry.)

While most of the film isn’t laugh-out-loud funny, it is hilarious in the little absurdities of its moments. In one scene, the cousins missed their train because one couldn’t bear to wake the other as they were having ‘a really good nap’. These small moments are hilarious and help break up the omnipresent social tension. Throughout the film, I ping-ponged between recoiling in horror at the social awkwardness on display and chuckling to myself at the funny moments in between. This mix along with the connective human tissue running throughout made the film memorable.

A Real Pain is a short movie (1hr30m) and never wears out its welcome. It tells exactly the story it wants to tell and nothing else, which I appreciate. Despite the quick clip, it develops its characters and their relationship beautifully. I will almost certainly return to this film at some point and recommend it to anyone.

4/5 Stars – The pain is real, the awkwardness is real, my enjoyment of this film is real

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