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A Real Pain
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A Real Pain

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2024 • 90 min • ★ 6.8 (1,512) • Released
Comedy Drama

Mismatched cousins David and Benji reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.

Original title
A Real Pain
Language
EN
Country
US
Budget
$3,000,000
Revenue
$24,856,027
Reviews & Ratings 6
J

JJ Rosales

Oct 24, 2026 · via TMDB

★ 6.0

My experience would have been better if this was in a theater.. But with that said, I understand the motif that was attempted but a lot of it was left implied. We were needing to essentially pick up the ticks, habits, and hints of how each person was experiencing grief. I would’ve like it to be a little more clear. Tell me what you want me to know. If you just try to show me, I may not pick up what you want me to. But all that to say, a solid entry to Jesse Eisenbergs directorial collection.

Marco-Hugo Landeta Vacas

Marco-Hugo Landeta Vacas

Oct 18, 2026 · via TMDB

(CASTELLANO) Una herida heredada que se ríe justo antes de doler Me gustó bastante. Tiene algo pequeño, sencillo y muy humano que funciona muy bien: dos primos viajando por Polonia para conectar con la memoria de su abuela y, al mismo tiempo, chocando todo el rato porque cada uno lleva el dolor de una forma distinta. No es una película enorme, pero sí de esas que parecen ligeras y luego van dejando más poso del que aparentan. La pareja principal sostiene todo. Jesse Eisenberg está en su registro de nervios, rigidez, ansiedad y control, pero aquí eso encaja muy bien con David. Es un hombre correcto, educado, contenido, de los que intentan que todo salga bien aunque por dentro estén llenos de incomodidad. Frente a él, Benji es justo lo contrario: expansivo, imprevisible, encantador, insoportable y profundamente triste. Kieran Culkin se come muchas escenas, y eso tiene mérito porque el personaje podía haber sido solo “el primo raro que da vergüenza”. Benji interrumpe, incomoda, hace bromas cuando no debe, invade espacios ajenos y parece incapaz de comportarse como se espera. Pero debajo de esa energía hay un dolor real, una herida que no sabe ordenar. Por eso puede resultar irritante y magnético a la vez. Lo interesante es que la película no juzga fácil a ninguno de los dos. David parece el adulto funcional, pero también es envidioso, reprimido y cobarde emocionalmente. Benji parece el desastre, pero muchas veces es quien percibe antes la falsedad, la solemnidad vacía o la necesidad de mirar de verdad a las personas. Uno se protege controlándolo todo; el otro se rompe delante de todos. La escena del cementerio judío me gustó mucho. Cuando Benji hace callar al guía para que recuerden a las personas enterradas, no lo viví como una simple salida de tono. Es incómodo, claro, pero también tiene sentido: hay momentos en que la explicación turística puede convertirse en ruido, en una forma educada de pasar por encima del dolor. Benji, con todas sus formas caóticas, entiende eso. La película acierta al tratar el Holocausto sin convertirlo en postal solemne ni en lección de museo. El viaje tiene algo de turismo de memoria, y eso podía salir muy mal, pero Eisenberg encuentra un tono delicado: hay humor, torpeza, culpa, curiosidad, vergüenza y respeto. Los personajes no saben del todo cómo comportarse ante ese pasado, y esa duda me parece honesta. También me gustó la música. Ese Chopin ligado a Polonia le da una melancolía muy especial, y además me conectó con mis propios recuerdos de cuando aprendía música de pequeño. No es una banda sonora que subraye de forma burda, sino una presencia que acompaña el viaje con una tristeza elegante, casi familiar. El desahogo de David en el restaurante es una de las mejores escenas. Ahí sale todo: cariño, rabia, envidia, agotamiento, culpa y esa sensación de querer muchísimo a alguien que también te consume. David no odia a Benji; lo quiere, pero está cansado de orbitar alrededor de su caos. Y al mismo tiempo le duele que Benji tenga una facilidad para conectar con los demás que él no tiene. Esa ambivalencia está muy bien observada. Hay familias en las que uno parece cargar con la estabilidad y otro con el carisma, uno con las normas y otro con la emoción. La película entiende lo injusto que puede sentirse eso para ambos. Benji sufre, pero David también sufre al lado de Benji. Y ninguno de los dos sabe traducir bien ese dolor. Puede parecer una película muy escrita, incluso un poco calculada en su equilibrio entre risa y tristeza, pero no me molestó demasiado porque las emociones llegan limpias. Es breve, va al grano y no necesita grandes giros. Su fuerza está en los roces, en los silencios después de una broma, en la incomodidad de no saber qué hacer con una pena heredada. El grupo del viaje también ayuda. No son personajes profundísimos, pero dan contexto y permiten ver cómo Benji afecta a todos: a veces ilumina la escena, a veces la sabotea, a veces dice justo lo que nadie se atreve a decir. Ese efecto expansivo explica por qué David lo quiere y por qué no puede más con él. Lo que más valoro es que no ofrece una solución fácil. El viaje no cura a nadie ni ordena mágicamente la vida de los primos. Volver al lugar del dolor familiar no garantiza entenderlo todo. A veces solo permite mirarlo un poco mejor, aceptar que hay heridas que se heredan y que cada uno las lleva como puede. Al final, me queda como una comedia dramática muy bonita, triste y contenida. Me hizo sonreír, me incomodó y me tocó más de lo que esperaba. Kieran Culkin está espléndido, Eisenberg sabe acompañarlo sin competir y la película encuentra un tono difícil: ligero sin ser superficial, doloroso sin volverse tremendista. Una pequeña historia sobre familia, memoria y dolor que se queda dentro. (ENGLISH) An inherited wound that laughs just before it hurts I liked it quite a lot. It has something small, simple and very human that works very well: two cousins travelling through Poland to connect with the memory of their grandmother and, at the same time, clashing constantly because each of them carries pain in a different way. It is not a huge film, but it is one of those that seem light and then leave more behind than they first suggest. The central pair carries everything. Jesse Eisenberg stays within his register of nerves, stiffness, anxiety and control, but here that fits David very well. He is a correct, polite, contained man, the kind who tries to make everything go smoothly even though inside he is full of discomfort. Opposite him, Benji is the exact opposite: expansive, unpredictable, charming, unbearable and deeply sad. Kieran Culkin steals many scenes, and that matters because the character could have been only “the weird cousin who embarrasses everyone”. Benji interrupts, makes people uncomfortable, jokes when he should not, invades other people’s spaces and seems unable to behave as expected. But beneath that energy there is real pain, a wound he does not know how to put in order. That is why he can be irritating and magnetic at the same time. What is interesting is that the film does not judge either of them easily. David seems like the functional adult, but he is also jealous, repressed and emotionally cowardly. Benji seems like the disaster, but often he is the one who first senses falseness, empty solemnity or the need to really look at people. One protects himself by controlling everything; the other breaks in front of everyone. I liked the Jewish cemetery scene a lot. When Benji makes the guide be quiet so they can remember the people buried there, I did not see it as just another outburst. It is uncomfortable, of course, but it also makes sense: there are moments when tourist explanation can become noise, an educated way of stepping over pain. Benji, with all his chaotic manners, understands that. The film succeeds in treating the Holocaust without turning it into a solemn postcard or a museum lesson. The journey has something of memory tourism, and that could have gone very wrong, but Eisenberg finds a delicate tone: there is humor, awkwardness, guilt, curiosity, shame and respect. The characters do not fully know how to behave before that past, and that uncertainty feels honest to me. I also liked the music. That Chopin tied to Poland gives the film a very special melancholy, and it also connected me with my own memories of learning music as a child. It is not a soundtrack that underlines things crudely, but a presence that accompanies the journey with an elegant, almost familiar sadness. David’s outburst in the restaurant is one of the best scenes. Everything comes out there: affection, anger, envy, exhaustion, guilt and the feeling of loving someone very much while also being consumed by them. David does not hate Benji; he loves him, but he is tired of orbiting around his chaos. And at the same time it hurts him that Benji has an ease with other people that he does not. That ambivalence is very well observed. There are families in which one person seems to carry stability and another charisma, one rules and the other emotion. The film understands how unfair that can feel for both of them. Benji suffers, but David also suffers beside Benji. And neither of them knows how to translate that pain well. It may feel like a very written film, even a little calculated in its balance between laughter and sadness, but that did not bother me much because the emotions arrive cleanly. It is brief, direct and does not need big twists. Its strength is in the friction, in the silences after a joke, in the discomfort of not knowing what to do with inherited grief. The travel group also helps. They are not extremely deep characters, but they give context and allow us to see how Benji affects everyone: sometimes he lights up the scene, sometimes he sabotages it, sometimes he says exactly what nobody dares to say. That expansive effect explains why David loves him and why he cannot take any more of him. What I value most is that it does not offer an easy solution. The journey does not cure anyone or magically put the cousins’ lives in order. Returning to the place of family pain does not guarantee understanding everything. Sometimes it only allows you to look at it a little better, to accept that some wounds are inherited and that each person carries them however they can. In the end, for me it remains a very beautiful, sad and restrained dramedy. It made me smile, made me uncomfortable and touched me more than I expected. Kieran Culkin is splendid, Eisenberg knows how to accompany him without competing, and the film finds a difficult tone: light without being superficial, painful without becoming melodramatic. A small story about family, memory and pain that stays inside.

B

badelf

Jun 25, 2026 · via TMDB

★ 7.0

Summary: 7/10: a film with real strengths in performance and tone, undermined somewhat by its inability to fully commit to its central relationship. Jesse Eisenberg's directorial effort is an interesting film, though not a brilliant one. Two cousins, David and Benji, embark on a Holocaust tour through Poland to honor their grandmother's memory, and what follows is a study in contrasts: David's anxious restraint against Benji's manic energy, comedy against pathos, the weight of historical trauma against the immediacy of personal pain. The balance of comedy and pathos here is what carries the film. Eisenberg understands how humor and grief coexist, how a tour bus full of people confronting unimaginable historical horror can still contain petty irritations, awkward moments, genuine laughter. The tonal shifts work; the film breathes in ways that feel true to how people actually navigate difficult emotional terrain. The weakness is focus, or rather the lack of it. This wants to be a film about family, tolerance, and love, about two cousins trying to reconnect across the distance that's grown between them, about understanding someone whose pain manifests as chaos. That film would have ranked much higher. Instead, it keeps returning to the Holocaust tour itself, developing that subject too thoroughly, and the result feels diffuse. The historical weight and the personal story never quite merge into a coherent whole; they compete for attention rather than illuminating each other. Eisenberg plays his trademark nebbish quite well, all nervous energy and apologetic existence. He knows this territory; David is a familiar type, the responsible one, the anxious accommodator. But Kieran Culkin is phenomenal here. His Benji is a highly believable manic depressive, charismatic and exhausting, capable of profound connection one moment and casual cruelty the next. Culkin makes you understand why people are drawn to Benji and why loving him is so difficult; he's magnetic and impossible simultaneously, and the performance never feels calculated or showy. It's raw, lived-in work. His performance is worth the price of admission.

r96sk

r96sk

Jan 9, 2025 · via TMDB

★ 7.0

<em>'A Real Pain'</em> is a real solid watch. It makes up for its no-frills with plenty of heart and a meaningful buddy road trip. It's described as a comedy-drama and it is, though I'd say it's more the latter than the former; albeit with a still sizeable dose of comedy, it is amusing. Kieran Culkin is the reason for the aforementioned, he is the star of this particular show and is funny throughout - though when he has to play more serious, he does to very good effect. Jesse Eisenberg (also dir.) acts alongside, he plays his character really well too. Two strong performers! Will Sharpe and Kurt Egyiawan are good too. I remember seeing part of the trailer and thought it had <em>'Planes, Trains and Automobiles'</em> vibes, I guess there are naturally tiny shades of that but it is very much its own thing. I definitely enjoyed watching it unfold.

CinemaSerf

CinemaSerf

Jan 9, 2025 · via TMDB

★ 7.0

"Grandma Dory" has passed away and left her two grandsons some money so that they can take a trip to Poland and see where she grew up amidst the Nazi invasion and subsequent holocaust. These two are cousins. "David" (Jesse Eisenberg) is a bit of a shy, geeky, type who lives in New York with his wife and child. "Banji" (Kieran Culkin) is quite the opposite. A free spirited, thinking and speaking individual who cares little for what anyone else thinks about him. The pair clearly love each other, but the behaviour of the latter continues to rattle his travelling companion, especially when they meet up with the other members of their touring party in Warsaw. What now ensues is quite a testament to both Eisenberg's vision as a writer/director but also to the inspired casting of Culkin. He is the kind of holiday companion I'd cheerfully have killed with a rusty harpoon. Loud, brash, opinionated and sometimes borderline cruel as he imposes himself on the group swearing as he goes. Gradually, though, we discover that both men have shields up; both are dealing with some fairly deep psychological issues in their own way and even ought these may clash, there is still far more fundamentally connecting them that not. There are ample opportunities to see the sights of Warsaw, and there is an haunting few minutes at the Majdanek camp where shoes, thousands and thousands of shoes, make you shiver. It's potent and it's often funny, darkly so, and in many ways it slots nicely into the recent panoply of dramas about the fascination by younger generations in the horror of war that those who endured actually want to get past and forget. It also shines a light on the whole business of tourism around these monuments, and does make it quite clear that sometimes these trips can become a statistical box-ticking exercise, especially for Americans, who want to say they've "done" that. An architectural monument equivalent of a safari "big five". In the end I found "Benji" to be a vulnerable but fundamentally selfish and unlikeable character - but I bet there are many reading this who profoundly disagree. That's proof that these two did their job well and I'd recommend you go see it in a cinema for a couple of powerful and characterful performances.

C

Chandler Danier

Jan 3, 2025 · via TMDB

★ 8.0

Good little buddy trip flick. Funny bits. Characters. Stupid tourists making life miserable for locals. Better acting than the mighty Megalopolis. Very clever title.

User reviews courtesy of TMDB.

Keywords 19
candid compassionate coping mechanisms cousin relationship death of grandmother dramedy gentle grief heritage holocaust (shoah) jewish jewish american pain poland reflection suicide attempt tour vacation witty
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Cast 12
Jesse Eisenberg

Jesse Eisenberg

David Kaplan

Kieran Culkin

Kieran Culkin

Benji Kaplan

Will Sharpe

Will Sharpe

James

Jennifer Grey

Jennifer Grey

Marcia

Kurt Egyiawan

Kurt Egyiawan

Eloge

Liza Sadovy

Liza Sadovy

Diane

Daniel Oreskes

Daniel Oreskes

Mark

Ellora Torchia

Ellora Torchia

Priya

Olha Bosova

Olha Bosova

Flight Attendant

Piotr Czarniecki

Piotr Czarniecki

Conductor

Marek Kasprzyk

Marek Kasprzyk

Older Man

Jakub Pruski

Jakub Pruski

Son

Crew 13
Michał Dymek

Michał Dymek

Director of Photography

Sam Lilja

Sam Lilja

Dialect Coach

Emi Buchwald

Emi Buchwald

Thanks

Jesse Eisenberg

Jesse Eisenberg

Director

Michael Bloom

Michael Bloom

Executive Producer

Ryan Heller

Ryan Heller

Executive Producer

Ali Herting

Ali Herting

Producer

Dave McCary

Dave McCary

Producer

Emma Stone

Emma Stone

Producer

Ewa Puszczyńska

Ewa Puszczyńska

Producer

Jesse Eisenberg

Jesse Eisenberg

Producer

Thurman Martin III

Thurman Martin III

Visual Effects Producer

Jesse Eisenberg

Jesse Eisenberg

Writer

Gallery 260
Videos 75
Similar Movies 342
Recommended 55
US Release Dates 18

Jan 20, 2024

Sundance Film Festival

Premiere

Sep 19, 2024

Aspen Film Festival

Premiere

Oct 4, 2024

Beyond Fest

Premiere

Oct 5, 2024

New York Film Festival

Premiere

Oct 10, 2024

Heartland International Film Festival

Premiere

Oct 18, 2024

Middleburg Film Festival / Santa Fe International Film Festival

Premiere

Oct 20, 2024

Philadelphia Film Festival / Woodstock Film Festival

Premiere

Oct 22, 2024

Twin Cities Film Fest

Premiere

Oct 23, 2024

Chicago International Film Festival

Premiere

Oct 27, 2024

FilmColumbia Film Festival

Premiere

Oct 29, 2024

Austin Film Festival

Premiere

Nov 1, 2024

R Theatrical (Limited)

Nov 8, 2024

Coronado Island Film Festival

Premiere

Nov 15, 2024

R Theatrical

Dec 31, 2024

R Digital

Jan 16, 2025

Hulu

R Digital

Jan 24, 2025

Re-Release

R Theatrical (Limited)

Feb 4, 2025

Blu-ray

R Physical

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