This isn’t the easiest moment in history to be launching a film exploring its author’s Jewish heritage, thanks to the violent repercussions of events in the Middle East, but the historical baggage that comes with that heritage is all part of Eisenberg’s theme. Set to an eloquent and frequently melancholy soundtrack of Chopin’s piano music, A Real Pain is a bittersweet story about two Jewish cousins, Benji and David Kaplan (Kieran Culkin and Eisenberg), who take a trip to Poland in memory of their beloved grandmother, a recently-deceased Holocaust survivor. Beneath the wisecracks and one-liners there’s a subtle and penetrating analysis of family bonds and the burden of shared history.

The film’s gentle ripple of underlying sadness stems from the fact that the cousins were previously very close, but have drifted apart. They’re about as dissimilar as it’s possible to be, but glimpses of their odd-couple bond gradually resurface as the narrative develops. Eisenberg’s David is quiet and introverted, but is successful as both family man and in his Manhattan-based career in computing. On the other hand, we gradually learn that Benji is drifting rootlessly through his life out in the suburbs. He’s searching desperately for something meaningful, and is struggling to keep himself on the rails. He has been hit hard by his grandmother’s death, confessing that “she was just my favourite person in the world.”

In any event, the role gives Culkin carte blanche to charge recklessly through the gears, in a bravura performance which gives the film its centrifugal force. Some of the time he’s a babbling extrovert who effortlessly dominates any social gathering, for instance persuading everybody in their touring party to pose for selfies on a statue commemorating the Warsaw Uprising, but the flipside is that he can’t tell where the boundaries are (and has little interest in finding them). David is aghast when they’re heading for the boarding gate for their flight to Poland, and Benji cheerfully announces that he’s carrying a stash of dope (“I got some good shit for when we land”.)

One moment everybody loves Benji, then suddenly he becomes an insufferable asshole. He’s prone to wildly inappropriate outbursts, like the moment when the tour party are travelling in a first class railway carriage and Benji goes into an emotionally incontinent display of guilt about the contrast with his Jewish antecedents being transported to death camps in cattle trucks.

Fortunately their travelling companions (who include Dirty Dancing veteran Jennifer Grey, pictured top, and Kurt Egyiawan as a survivor of the Rwandan genocide) show superhuman patience, not least their English tour guide James (Will Sharpe), who graciously accepts Benji’s tactless critique of his guiding technique (Sharpe and Eisenberg pictured above). The fact that James is a scholar of East European Studies from Oxford University, not Jewish himself but “fascinated by the Jewish experience”, is a crafty little comic narrative all of its own.

It’s a difficult film to categorise, being part comedy, part road movie, part psychotherapy session and part personal memoir. Perhaps Woody Allen might have called it a “situation tragedy”. It’s a clever, complex piece, but Eisenberg has made it look breezily simple.

On the index of possible spoil alert sins one could make about the erotic thriller Babygirl, perhaps the least objectionable is that which most people already know: The film belongs to the very rare species of film literally ending with the big “O.” Nicole Kidman’s final orgasmic aria of ecstasy caps off a film which dares to tell a morally slippery tale. But for all the high points and gray zones of writer-director Halina Reijn’s intriguing film, the least ambiguous moment arrives at its climax. So to speak.

The central premise is a maze-like anatomy of an affair, between Kidman’s Romy Mathis, a fierce but also mid-life conflicted 50-year-old CEO of a robotics company, and a sly, handsome twenty-something intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson, who will appear at the Virtuosos Tribute at this year’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival). Sparks fly, and mutually pursued seduction ensues behind closed doors and away from the prying eyes of her family (and husband, played by Antonio Banderas).

From the outset, though, it’s apparent that nefarious sexual exploits, though those do liberally spice up the film’s real estate, are not the primary subject. It’s more a film steeped with power-play gamesmanship, emotional extortion, and assorted manipulations of class and hierarchical structures. Samuel teases a thinly veiled challenge to her early on, “I think you like to be told what to do.” She feigns shock, but soon acquiesces, and what transpires on their trail of deceptions and shifting romantic-sexual relationship includes a twist in which he demands her submission in exchange for him not sabotaging her career trajectory.

Kidman, who gives another powerful performance in Babygirl, is no stranger to roles involving frank sexuality and complications thereof. She has excelled in such fragile and vulnerable situations, especially boldly in Gus Van Sant’s brilliant To Die For (also a May/October brand dalliance story), and Stanley Kubrick’s carnally acknowledged Eyes Wide Shut. Ironically or not, she finds herself in the most tensely abusive sex play as the wife of Alexander Skarsgård in TVs Big Little Lies.

Compared to those examples, Babygirl works a disarmingly easygoing line. For all of his presumed sadistic power playing, Dickinson — who turns in a nuanced performance in an inherently complex role — is often confused and sometimes be mused in the course of his actions or schemes. In an early tryst encounter, his domination play seems improvised and peppered with self-effacing giggles, while in a later, potentially creepier hotel scene, his will to wield power morphs into his state of vulnerable, almost child-like reliance on her good graces. The oscillating power play dynamics get further complicated.

Complications and genre schematics also play into the film’s very identity, in fresh ways. Dutch director (and actress) Reijn has dealt with erotically edgy material in the past, especially with her 2019 film Instinct. But, despite its echoes and shades of Fifty Shades of Gray and 9½ Weeks, Babygirl cleverly tweaks the standard “erotic thriller” format — with its dangerous passions and calculated upward arc of body heating — into unexpected places. At times, the thriller form itself softens around the edges, and we become more aware of the gender/workplace power structures at the heart of the film’s message.

But, message-wise, Reijn is not ham-fisted or didactic in her treatment of the subject. There is always room for caressing and redirecting the impulse, in the bedroom, boardroom, and cinematic storyboarding.

See trailer here.

A Real Pain, 2024.

Written and Directed by Jesse Eisenberg.
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Ellora Torchia, Liza Sadovy, and Daniel Oreskes.

SYNOPSIS:

Mismatched cousins David and Benji reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair’s old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.

At one point on the Holocaust tour in Poland, Benji (a devastatingly complex Kieran Culkin) loses his cool and freaks out. To be fair, he does this multiple times in writer/director/star Jesse Eisenberg’s achingly effective but sharply funny A Real Pain (marking his return to Sundance following up his debut feature When You Finish Saving the World), portraying a somewhat contradictory individual, tormented and lost following the death of his Jewish grandmother, seemingly the only adult who was able to successfully ground him. Part of the magic trick here is that Kieran Culkin is fully raw, vulnerable, authentic, and hilarious throughout every bit of his unexpected, brash, and sometimes uncalled-for behavior. 

Traveling with his close cousin from New York to Poland to reconnect and pay respects to their grandma, Jesse Eisenberg’s David is also unsure what to expect, repeatedly calling Benji on the way to the airport as if disaster is going to strike if he doesn’t check up on him often. They also share polar opposite personalities, with David being, well, the socially awkward and nervous Jesse Eisenberg moviegoers are familiar with, whereas Benji is a directionless stoner (he has also arranged for some marijuana to be delivered to him at the hotel they will be staying at in Warsaw) who needs this trip as a form of therapy. As a married father, David takes time out of his busy life to be there for his cousin and provide support.

Being present is a huge theme in A Real Pain, but considering these cousins are also taking up a Holocaust tour before ending their vacationing week by visiting their grandmother’s home (where she lived in Poland before experiencing 1,000 incidents of luck to avoid concentration camps and flee the country), it’s also about suffering and the different baggage people bring to these situations. One minute, Benji is playful and encourages the rest of the group to pose alongside some memorials of soldiers, pretending to be medics or fighting alongside the resistance. In the next scene, he could be irritable riding first class on a train expressing that such privileged treatment feels distant from the reality of what his grandmother and others lived through.

Grouped up with a non-Jewish but friendly, well-meaning tour guide named James (Will Sharpe), Benji also points out that the nonstop barrage of facts, especially when visiting a historic cemetery, also feels cold and counterproductive to the experience. This shouldn’t be about statistics, but something that can be felt. In that same vein, David and Benji must also have difficult conversations about the past and what the latter will do in the present (there’s one revealed that, while sensitively handled, also feels like something this story doesn’t even need.) However, the actors do have charming chemistry whenever they are alone and reminiscing about the good times, which is unsurprisingly dynamite when things turn serious. 

A Real Pain is historically and culturally emotional as it is personally involving, with Jesse Eisenberg noticeably evolving as a filmmaker. Here, he is confident and comfortable taking brief moments with cinematographer Michał Dymek to linger on statues, murals, and architecture or anything that might deliver a vicarious feeling that we are alongside these characters on this tour. There’s a beautiful, soft scene where buildings and landmarks are rattled off, each with a shot of what exists there now. It’s enough to make one wish the film delved even deeper into the historical context and the tour itself.

Naturally, this also elicits curiosity about what they will find when the cousins inevitably visit their grandmother’s former home. Whatever it is, we hope Benji finds healing and that the struggles would then he and David’s relationship will also feel repaired (it’s that typical notion of feeling lost when a relative no longer has time to be carefree and hang out constantly since they now have a family.) Without giving it away, David certainly tries resulting in a painfully funny, cathartic sensation. A Real Pain is a multilayered look at generational trauma with poignant and hilarious complex chemistry from its leads.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist