cinema_made’s review published on Letterboxd:
A Real Pain, a film that wears the mask of humor and light accessibility to disguise and complement its deeper themes of existential ache and historical trauma.A Real Pain brings tremendous emotional sensitivity and a more focused wit to the story of two cousins traveling together to the land of their family’s heritage, and the issues that journey brings up.
The comedy in A Real Pain is skillfully woven throughout the narrative, providing emotional relief in moments of tension and depth. The dialogues are sharp and filled with intelligent humor, which emerges naturally in the interactions between the characters, especially between David and Benji. It makes the audience laugh at unexpected moments, relieving the emotional tension without distracting from the central themes
Eisenberg also wrote and stars in the picture as the more grounded of the two characters, but the showcase performance is undoubtedly that of Kieran Culkin, to create a character here that is complex, irritating, endearing, and deeply wounded. The script, with its well-crafted dialogue and introspective moments as the characters navigate the historical sites of Poland, especially Kieran Culkin’s character, who is once again brilliant, captures the emotional charge that these spaces evoke.
A Real Pain is very much aware of the ways in which the brightest smiles and broadest laughs can serve as masks for deep wells of feeling, a disparity it engages and provokes, result is a small gem of a movie, consistent in its humor and boundlessly surprising in its humanity.
81/100
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