“A Real Pain,” December 21, 2024. The Lexington Venue theater. First movie in the theater since my accident. Seats were adequate but my body didn’t do will. Yikes.
We both really liked and appreciated Jessie Eisenberg’ written/directed/produced/starring story of two cousins on a tour of Poland Jewry with other. David (Eisenberg) is anxious about everything, Benjy (Kieren Culkin) is wildly loose and, I would suspect from his character, bi-polar, are part of a Jewish visit to Poland to go to their Grandmother’s home in Lublin. These two used to be best buds as well as cousins, but each went their own way, one to a work-a-day life, the other to his mother’s basement and lots of pot. One is wild, the other repressed.
They’re travelling with a couple from Shaker Heights, Ohio (do I know them?), a very young-looking mother/grandmother (Jennifer Grey in a lovely turn), and a Rawandan survivor of his own genocide who converted to Judaism. The tour is led by a Brit scholar of E. European Judaism. Eash has their own pain, except the couple from Ohio as they tour Warsaw, Lublin, and Majdanek concentration camp. The latter moments are profound, tragic, moving, and horrible pain. But the others’ pain is no less real as people work to make their way through the world. Culkin is an inch away from totally over the top but also feels genuine and ‘real pain.’ Be kind to one another and to your(our)selves. Easier said than done.