A REAL PAIN

It’s a slip of a thing, clocking in at a tight 90 minutes; a deft, light-footed amalgamation of two potentially formulaic comedy genres: the road movie and the mismatched buddy flick. out

For better or worse, Benji leaves a mark on the other members of the tour group. David barely registers as an afterthought. But the social ease with which Benji is blessed doesn’t mean that he is at peace as a person. Quite the opposite. The lack of filter that permits him to break the ice and bond with strangers also means that he lashes out indiscriminately – at the hapless British tour guide; at his cousin, for having the temerity to move on with his life and start a family; at his fellow travellers and the inherent tackiness of luxury trauma tourism.

There’s enough pain on display in Jesse Eisenberg’s crackling comedy A Real Pain to keep numerous therapists busy for years…

It’s a cavalcade of angst and agony, from the familial to the historical, with an occasionally quite bleak assessment of the human condition. Nevertheless, it’s also levitated by a truly joyful sense of humour that puts up a good fight against the story’s darker moments without trying to joke them into irrelevance.

David is a knotted-up reed of stammering, compulsive worry in the shape of an urban professional who can never get anything out of his head long enough to enjoy anything. Benjy is a sad-eyed slacker whose unease doesn’t roll inside but explodes out as attention-grabbing manias that make clear that he will be sewing chaos at every step of the trip.

Things come to a head fast after the cousins join up with their tour group in Poland…

Film Facts

• Kieran Culkin won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
• Jesse Eisenberg was nominated for Best Original Screenplay.