Feeling a Real Pain at the Multiplex

I had looked forward for weeks to seeing the new film written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, of The Social Network fame. A Real Pain is a serious but at times very funny indie about two first cousins traveling to today’s Poland as part of a Jewish Heritage tour. Their Polish grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, and of course the memories of that 20^th century tragedy inform the film, which includes a genuinely solemn visit to the actual Majdanek death camp near Lublin. But the focus is on the two young men whose more comfortable lives in America have not saved them from a deeply internalized sort of pain.

 The two are played by Eisenberg himself and by Kieran Culkin, who recently scored big with the TV miniseries, Succession. As per usual, Eisenberg plays a neurotic type, outwardly living a wholesome life with a wife, a kid, and a high-tech job, but inwardly a bundle of nerves. Culkin, who has received major attention for his role, is the apparent free spirit, still smoking weed in his mother’s basement while deciding what he wants to do when he grows up. His Benji Kaplan is, though, much more complicated than that. Yes, he knows how to have fun, and he lives by the mantra that rules are meant to be broken, but at times he dissolves into a profound grief from which he cannot easily be rescued.

 Naturally, these two interact, with varying degrees of success, with the others on the tour: an older couple, a deeply spiritual Rwandan convert to Judaism, and a middle-aged woman (Jennifer Grey) dealing with relationship problems of her own. There’s also an earnest British tour guide who is not Jewish but is somehow caught up in the tragedy of the European Jewish story. What’s instructive—and highly believable—is how hard all of these fellow travelers are trying to show their best selves on a journey so fraught with emotion.

 So, yes, I really liked the film. In its modest, concise way, it has a great deal to say about pain and its manifestations, large and small. There was only one problem. We all know that when movies are coming into theatres, exhibitors show “coming attractions” trailers designed to arose the curiosity of the moviegoing public. These trailers are meant to be enticing, but at times they try a little too hard. It so happens that I saw A Real Pain at the Santa Monica branch of the Laemmle theatre chain. The Laemmles, related to the long-ago honcho of Universal Studios, have been for decades a family dedicated to screening great independent films. (Their motto: “Not Afraid of Subtitles.”) Before every screening at a Laemmle theatre there’s a black & white intro, meant to look old-fashioned, comically warning about trailers, because they may contain violence, sex, bad language, the whole plot of the movie, etc. etc. etc. One of the many things you’re warned about is trailers that contain all the film’s best lines.

 That, I’m afraid, is what struck me after I finally saw A Real Pain. As a frequent moviegoer, I’d watched that trailer several times in various theatres,  And so when I sat down to watch the film, I knew about a few plot twists, and had already heard—several times over—Eisenberg’s very best speech, the one that puts David’s entire relationship with cousin Benjy into perspective. So although my movie companions were thrilled by this film, I pretty much felt I’d seen it before . . . because I had. What a shame that this painful story no longer felt fresh.