Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin Explore Loss – The Hollywood Reporter

Kieran Culkin (left) and Jesse Eisenberg in “Real Pain”

Courtesy of the Sundance Institute

If you follow even part of some of the festival Q&As after the screening with the directors, you may sometimes feel like they are explaining the film they intended to make rather than the film you just saw. But Jesse Eisenberg is nothing if not very articulate. It describes the essence of its second subtle feature, Real pain, such as considering “epic pain versus more modern pain,” and how to reconcile the latter with something as monumental as genocide or historical trauma. What’s surprising is that he achieves this with deft touch and lightness in an often out-loud funny odd couple road trip movie where your emotional trauma creeps up and hits you.

Eisenberg’s perceptive script – rooted in his family history – shares some thematic areas with the second multi-hyphenate play, Revisionistin which he starred off-Broadway with Vanessa Redgrave in 2013. The film is about the struggle of Americans grappling with their own problems, no matter how minor, while trying to be mindful of the punitive experience endured by their ancestors from traumatized cultures – a film about the Holocaust With a new perspective story.

Normally, I’m against critics inserting themselves into reviews, but I’d be making a huge mistake and doing it anyway. In no way do I wish to conclude that my family history is comparable to that of descendants of World War II survivors. But my devout Catholic mother, who died in 2020 on the other side of the globe in a country whose borders were closed at the time for pandemic control purposes, was a classical pianist who loved to play Chopin. The work of this composer is the main source of music in Real painbeautifully played by Israeli-Canadian pianist Zvi Erez.

In a film that deals with, among other things, the legacy of pain, loss, and suffering, the clips I grew up hearing over the background noise hit me hard. I’ve never been more fully immersed in the intimate moments and fluid tonal shifts of an Eisenberg film. But part of my mind was also occupied with thoughts of a woman whom I had to mourn from a distance, and of the life she lived—an ordinary life with its share of difficulties and rewards, though perhaps rarely as fulfilling as it deserved.

It takes a filmmaker with emotional acuity and spiritual generosity to mine painful history while providing nuanced access paths for audiences from very different backgrounds to find their way to it. Acknowledging the universality of his underlying themes, Eisenberg does so with emotional maturity.

The writer-director portrays himself as New Yorker David, a somewhat uptight but successful digital advertising salesman with a beautiful wife and an adorable young son. Months after the death of his grandmother, who miraculously survived in concentration camps, immigrated to the United States and rebuilt a formidable life, David funds a trip to her homeland, Poland, for himself and his cousin Benjy (Kieran Culkin), with whom he adores. . David and Benjy were once close but drifted apart, and not just because Benjy moved out of town.

The dynamic between the opposing cousins ​​is embodied in the entertaining opening scenes at the airport. David is a nervous type, a bit nervous and needs to be in control of every situation. Simple open bungee with no filter. He refuses to self-censor even inappropriate comments. Both actors are great, but Culkin is an absolute delight. He couldn’t have chosen a better role to show his next range Successionespecially as the story progresses and we are exposed more to Benjy’s dark side.

The cousins’ itinerary begins with meeting a tour group in Warsaw and continues over the course of a week with time in the picturesque, historic city of Lublin, followed by a visit to the Majdanek concentration camp. David and Benji will branch out for the last two days to go to the house where their grandmother last lived before leaving Poland. (These scenes were filmed outside a house formerly owned by Eisenberg’s relatives.)

The tour is designed specifically for Jewish Americans, although British tour guide James (Will Sharp), a history scholar at Oxford University, strongly points out that he is “not Jewish but obsessed with the Jewish experience.” The meet and greet is an insightful way to introduce the distinct personalities that make up the small group. They include divorcee Marcia (Jennifer Gray), and older couple Diane (Lisa Sadovi) and Mark (Daniel Oreskes, who also appears in the film). Revisionist) and Eloge (Kurt Ejiawan), who fled the Rwandan genocide and later converted to Judaism.

Benjy’s interactions with all of them are funny precisely because he is indifferent to any embarrassment. The character seems designed to embarrass David and anger everyone else. But from day one, when he starts striking combat poses for photos in front of the monument to the Warsaw Uprising rebels, then rounds up the others one by one, it becomes clear that his job is going to be more complicated.

Having such an energetic corps on tour can be exciting but also a celebration of human resilience that changes the dynamic of the group, even affecting James.

Benjy’s outward appearance is dour—he has a package of weed mailed from New York to their hotel in Warsaw—but he never thinks about the places they visit and their historical significance. This can erupt in sudden mood swings, like his moral problem with Jews traveling first class on an intercity train when their ancestors are crammed into the last car. This does not come out of sanctity, but rather as a real internal conflict. “People can’t walk around happy all the time,” he tells David in defense of his outburst.

In another great scene, James interrupts midway through to object to the “constant barrage of statistics” while the guide provides historical context in a Jewish cemetery. This causes a quick reset that results in one of several impact breaks. While everyone is amazed by the visit to Majdanek on the cousins’ last day of the tour, Benjy is devastated by it. But his mood was instantly fixed by kind parting words from James, played with real sensitivity by Sharpe, who demonstrated a different skill set from his work in the series’ second season. White lotus.

After a welcome return to the screen, Gray also has his moments as the group member who forms the most surprising relationship with Benji. When she said that her daughter had married a very rich man and could no longer have a real conversation, Benjy replied, “Yes, money is like fucking heroin for boring people.” The entire cast is strong, but Ejiawan deserves a special mention because he is someone who is always listening, watching, and willing to show warmth and compassion in a way that is very different to born-and-raised Americans.

Of course, the main trajectory is the changing relationship between David and Benjy, with the former’s frequent exasperation, even anger, often at odds with his lifelong affection for his cousin. The revelation of a troubling incident in Benjy’s recent past is handled gracefully, and not manipulated for sentimentality. The developing tension between them culminates in a beautiful scene in which they share a joint on the roof of a hotel. David admits that he envies Benjy’s natural charm, but he also feels angry at the way his cousin suddenly turns off a lamp without warning: “You light up a room and then you get rid of everything in it.”

Cinematographer Michal Demek, who shot Jerzy Skolimowski’s visually intoxicating film Employers’ organisation, makes a wonderful transition from elegant compositions of city settings to the wide-open green countryside on the way to the old house of the cousin’s grandmother. This transformation also seems to foster a new understanding between them, which resonates through the completion of the pilgrimage and up to their poignant farewell at the airport in New York.

Eisenberg’s first feature film as director, When you’re done saving the world, received a mixed reception but showed promise. with Real painHe shows impeccable judgment and great skill in balancing wry wit and piercing seriousness in a film full of emotion, where no emotion is unearned.