45/35 David Kaplan: Yeah Narrative Misfit cousins reunite for a tour across Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the odd couple’s old tensions are resurfaced amid their family history. When Benji and David visit their grandmother in Poland, the place is where Jesse Eisenberg’s real-life ancestors settled in the diaspora.. Benji Kaplan: We stay moving, we stay light, we stay agile. Benji Kaplan: The conductor comes through, takes the tickets, we tell him we’re going to the bathroom. David Kaplan: Bathroom. Benji Kaplan: He comes to the back of the train, he starts heading toward the front looking for the crashers. Benji Kaplan: Yeah David Kaplan: Excuse me, are we crashers? By the time he gets to the front, the train is in the station and we’re home free. David Kaplan: This is so fucking stupid. The tickets are probably like twelve bucks. Benji Kaplan: That’s the principle of it. We shouldn’t have to pay for train tickets in Poland. This is our country. David Kaplan: No, it was our country They kicked us out because they thought we were cheap. Featured on CBS News Sunday Morning episode #46.44 (2024). 12 Etudes, Op. 25, No. 3 in F major Written by Frederic Chopin Performed by Tzvi Erez. Jesse Eisenberg’s second effort as a writer-director is something of an unusual one. There’s something of Richard Linklater’s BEFORE trilogy in the DNA of A REAL PAIN, and there’s also a recognizable legacy of Michael Winterbottom’s TRIP series. the characters are all very simple, very conventional, very boring The meandering pacing, the dull cinematography that begs you to look beneath the surface of the tourist attractions, the dialogue that meanders through a modest and unstructured deconstruction of the meaning of life, the complete absence of any “bad guys.” the almost complete absence of any direct conflict, the slightest hint of any goal that drives the plot beyond the simple completion of a journey… A Real Pain shares all of these realistic traits with the earlier, more spiritual, life-affirming films. But somehow… it doesn’t quite work, I’m not sure what was the reason I never got into this film. I think a lot of it has to do with all the supporting characters (well, everyone except the cousins played by Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin). Will Sharpe’s non-Jewish guide, the Rwandan convert, the old couple, the sexy divorcee… The actors playing them are good, but they don’t have much to do, so they seem unnatural and lifeless, more props than people. But maybe he can’t direct actors, or maybe he just can’t write characters I think Eisenberg knows how to control the camera; he knows how to put the right cinematic elements in place. There’s no indication that these people exist beyond the moments we see them, which could perhaps have been remedied by more spontaneous improvisation from the actors, but there’s still something rather crudely "written" about much of what they say and do. Eisenberg’s “workaholic salesman with OCD” is largely one-dimensional, and the few times his character expands beyond that facade seem more like forced acting than any kind of genuine glimpse into anything deeper. Culkin is lovely—perhaps a glimpse of his Heirloom character, if Roman Roy really cared about people—but I think that’s just a credit to Culkin’s talent; he somehow manages to transcend what he’s given to work with. This is a decent indie film with a few good laughs, a couple of interesting ideas, a memorable tour of Poland, and a solid performance from Culkin. https://32.xn--p1ai/gm-gm-swap-to-xlm-stellar/
