Humanity and Humour in A Real Pain

Winning the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival makes complete sense; whilst the film’s run time only hits 90 minutes, it impressively manages to create a filmic world that feels both developed and extremely human.

Surrounded by fellow travellers with diverse backgrounds, divorcee Marcia (Jennifer Grey), Rwandan genocide survivor Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan), and retiree couple Mark (Daniel Oreskes) and Diane (Liza Sadovy), they follow their guide James (Will Sharpe) while each learning about each other’s reasons for being there and enlightening one another along the way.

As its director, co-star, writer, and producer, A Real Pain truly highlights Jesse Eisenberg’s plethora of filmmaking talents without becoming a vanity project. He does not come across as someone flaunting his talent, but rather Kieran Culkin is given his well-deserved screen time.

After the success of his directorial debut with When You Finish Saving the World in 2022, Jesse Eisenberg has returned to his behind-the-scenes role with A Real Pain. This time also playing a role in the cast, which certainly did not disappoint when it first came to Tyneside Cinema as part of BFI London Film Festival (LFF).

Although less renowned for one role in particular, Eisenberg also possesses a quality that seeps through into all his characters that makes them distinctively his but undeniably type-cast. This can either end up being something that tires an audience or creates an almost cult-like following – thankfully for Eisenburg it seems to be the latter. With his role as David, it feels more introspective and self-aware than Eisenberg has been before.

With HBO’s Succession having garnered massive popularity, its final season concluding in May 2023, Culkin has deservedly become recognised outside of his brother’s fame. Being able to see him give life to a character outside of Roman Roy was an exciting prospect, there being a risk that Benji would not feel like a character who felt separate.

However, much like Eisenberg, despite the similarities that run through Culkin’s ever-growing filmography, Benji still feels subtly different with more humanity alongside his quips and signature humour.

What this film does particularly well is make the audience laugh out loud, yet still while maintaining moments of genuine human connection and poignancy.

Eisenberg was raised in a secular Jewish household, with his ancestry tracing back to Poland and Ukraine; the house the characters visit being Eisenberg’s actual family home until 1939. Clearly drawing from personal experience, Eisenberg spoke to TheWrap about how he wrote A Real Pain from a place of wanting to explore his feelings of “privilege, guilt and self-hatred.”

The film utilises the characters of David and Benji to explore generational pain, interfamily relations, and the intricacies of these when under an umbrella of larger global suffering. “I thought this would be a very interesting way to explore this, with two men who have different kinds of modern pain against the backdrop of something very global,” Eisenberg added.

Its relatively small cast makes for a closer connection to the audience and allows for the film to really develop its two main characters in a way that feels intimate and thought out. Culkin is very good at quick-fire dialogue and Eisenberg utilises this brilliantly throughout. He is witty and brings light to the film, whilst keeping the undertone of sorrow that is required to give this story well-earned intimate moments.

As much as ‘show don’t tell’ is a good rule to abide by when making film, there is something to be said for the abundance of speech throughout, it comes across as raw and honest. In a scene where Eisenberg’s character opens up to the rest of the tour group, in an outburst of emotion, we see the full extent of his acting potential, in addition to his writing skills.

Unfortunately, due to the overwhelming rise in streaming services, and the fallout of COVID, amongst other things; being sat in a packed cinema screen is sadly somewhat of a rare occurrence. This added to the excitement and buzz of LFF; not only being able to watch early screenings of films but being able to have a shared experience in a room filled with like-minded film lovers. Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, which at its heart is about humanity, its flaws and strengths, benefits from a viewing with others greatly.

A Real Pain screens at the Tyneside from Friday the 10th January 2025, with a Preview on Thursday the 9th of January and you can book tickets now.