14/46
Tickets are probably about twelve dollarsBenji Kaplan: It’s a matter of principle
Mismatched cousins reunite for a journey through Poland to pay their last respects to their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the mismatched pair’s old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. When Benji and David visit their grandmother’s house in Poland, this is the place where Jesse Eisenberg’s real-life ancestors settled in the diaspora.Benji Kaplan: We keep moving, we keep light, we keep agile.David Kaplan: Yes.Benji Kaplan: The conductor comes right over and 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 and goes to the front to look for stragglers.David Kaplan: Sorry, we’re the stragglers?Benji Kaplan: Yes. By the time he gets to the front, the train is in the station and we’re done.David Kaplan: This is so damn stupid.
Featured on CBS News Sunday Morning: Episode #4644 (2024)
We shouldn’t have to pay for train tickets in Poland. This is our country.David Kaplan: No, it’s not, it was our country. They kicked us out because they thought we were stingy.. 12 Etudes, Op. 25, No.
3 in F majorWritten by Frederic ChopinPerformed by Tzvi Erez
Jesse Eisenberg’s second work as a screenwriter and director is unconventional. There’s something of Richard Linklater’s BEFORE trilogy in A REAL PAIN’s DNA, and a certain legacy from Michael Winterbottom’s TRIP series. The shifting pace, the languid cinematography that asks you to look beyond the surface of the tourist attractions, the dialogue that meanders through an unpretentious and unstructured revelation of the meaning of life, the complete lack of any “villains,” the near-total absence of any overt conflict, the slightest hint of a goal guiding the plot beyond the fulfillment of a simple travel itinerary… A Real Pain shares all of these realistic traits with those earlier, more spirited, life-affirming films. And yet…
somehow it doesn’t quite work
I’m not sure what the reason was that I could never really get hooked on this film. I think a big part of it has to do with all of the supporting characters (i.e., all except the cousins played by Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin). Will Sharpe’s non-Jewish tour guide, the Rwandan convert, the old couple, the sexy divorcee… the characters are all very basic, very conventional, very boring. The actors who play them are good, but they don’t have much to do, and so they seem unnatural and lifeless, more like sets than people.
Eisenberg knows how to run a camera, I think; he knows how to use the right cinematic elements
But maybe he doesn’t know how to direct actors, or maybe he just doesn’t know how to write characters. There’s never anything to suggest that these people exist beyond the moments we see them, which could perhaps have been remedied with a little more spontaneous improvisation from the actors. Eisenberg and especially Culkin are better in this regard, but much of what they say and do still seems quite stilted and “scripted.” Eisenberg’s “workaholic salesman with OCD” is largely one-dimensional, and the few moments where his character goes beyond that façade feel more like forced acting than a real glimpse into something deeper. Culkin is wonderful – perhaps a glimpse into his character from Succession if Roman Roy actually cared about people – but I think that’s just a credit to Culkin’s talent; he somehow manages to go beyond what’s available to him. This is a decent indie film with a few good laughs, a few interesting ideas, a memorable tour of Poland, and a solid performance from Culkin.
