Cinema Without Borders: A Real Pain — Inheritance of trauma

The setting becomes the context as well as the trigger for complicated human emotions to spill over in actor Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial, A Real Pain. The story revolves around two disparate cousins, David and Benji Kaplan, who go on a tour to Poland, the home of their late grandmother. The film might seem like it is complying with the tropes of a typical road movie—the journey throwing their opposing personalities, choices and lives into sharp relief, dredging out the latent tensions between them. But the core goes beyond just the exploration of individual pains and relationship conundrums. The film grounds it in a broader framework that is both familial and historical.

Eisenberg’s second feature film after When You Finish Saving The World is about the inheritance of trauma across generations in a family. The personal anguish also becomes a manifestation of the impact of the legacy of World War II and how the shadow of the ordeal of the Holocaust continues to taint humanity’s present and future.

Inspired by Eisenberg’s own family history and how they had to flee Poland in 1938. A Real Pain features the many places he visited on his first trip to Poland in 2007, including his family’s apartment.

Eisenberg’s script, like life itself, is wonderfully poised on contraries—the darkness comes with a sunny side to it, the comedy is infused with tragic undertones, the funny goes hand in hand with the sad, laughter alternates with tears, and happiness paves the way for melancholy. Poignant, and profound, A Real Pain feels relatable even though one may not have found oneself in a similar situation as its protagonists or experienced similar emotions. The utterly humane film has been made from a space of empathy, the reason why it connects and resonates.

Beyond each other, the cousins find themselves in the company of a diverse set of fellow travellers from across the globe, all connected to the Holocaust in some way. It magnifies the film’s mandate by turning it into a universal exploration of the experience of genocide and human survival through tough times. The historical catastrophe then becomes a touchstone with which to account for the contemporary, ongoing carnages, as well as those that might come into play in the future.

Much of the film rests on conversations between characters and confidences shared with strangers—the most powerful being a dinner conversation between David and other travellers about the afflictions of Benji. They delicately unravel the complicated core of individuals, almost like peeling an onion. Chopin’s musical pieces run through the narrative, knitting the characters, relationships, and emotions into the wholesome fabric of the film.

The ideas and emotions of the film are brought to life by a wonderful ensemble. The show stealer is the charismatic Succession star Kieran Culkin, who is immensely likeable as well as sadly devastating as Benji. An inveterate charmer and sensitive enough to tune into the hidden pathos in others, he can’t quite get away with the carefree front he puts up for the suffering that he is nursing within.

Eisenberg himself plays a perfect foil to Culkin as David. Unlike Benji, he is a sorted, settled guy, with a loving wife and kid and a good job but unresolved when it comes to his own feelings for his cousin. The disappointments, frustrations, hurt and anger for where Benji has chosen to take himself, is rooted in an immense amount of care, concern and affection for him. A Real Pain is about ties that are as fraught as they are full of grace, as fragile as they are enduring.