“A Real Pain” really amused and touched me more than once, and that is quite an achievement in my trivial opinion. While it initially seems fairly simple as a familiar buddy road comedy-drama film, the movie is often surprisingly funny and poignant as deftly balancing itself between humor and pathos along with its two main characters. Like any good character comedy-drama movies, the movie brings out more human depth and insight than expected along its thoughtful and sensitive story, and we really get to know a lot about both of them when the story eventually arrives at the end of their little journey.

In the beginning, the movie quickly establishes the very different personalities of its two main characters. As shown from the very first scene, David Kaplan (Jesse Eisenberg) is often anxious and fastidious about almost everything in his life, but his cousin Benjamin “Benji” Kaplan (Kieran Culkin) is more casual and laid-back in comparison, and their personality difference is all the more evident when they meet at the JFK International airport outside New York City.

David and Benji are going to have a tour associated with the Jewish culture and history in Poland, and the main reason for their tour is quite personal to say the least. Besides a certain important cause involved with what recently happened in Benji’s life, he and David want to honor of the memory their Jewish grandmother who is no longer with them at present, and they are also going to visit where she once lived around the end of their tour.

The first half of the movie frequently generates small and big humorous moments as David and Benji show more of their contrasting personalities in front of us and several other people joining their tour under a British guide quite knowledgeable about the Polish Jewish history. Right from their first meeting, Benji lightens up the mood for everyone, but David seems rather embarrassed about his cousin’s carefree behavior, and this interesting behavioral pattern of theirs continues even when they finally have a time to have some rest before beginning another day of their tour.

As these two main characters and their fellow travelers go around here and there in Poland, the movie shows a number of interesting sights associated with the Polish history. We see several old buildings which are clearly the remains of the communist era during the late 20th century, and we also get to know a bit about the Jewish culture and history in Poland, which is actually more than, yes, the Holocaust and the World War II.

The purpose of the tour is getting to know and feel more of the Jewish history and culture in Poland, but Benji cannot help but express his thoughts and feelings on how the tour is about. When he and the other travelers visit a very old Jewish cemetery, he shrewdly points out to the British guide that he should do more than merely doling out bits of historical facts, and what he and the other travelers eventually do next actually means a lot for themselves.

Meanwhile, mainly via David’s frequently guarded attitude, we come to gather that there is something quite problematic about Benji. When they and the travelers have a little nice dinner together after visiting one of those infamous concentration camps during the World War II, both David and Benji come to show more of themselves as interacting more with the guide and their fellow travelers, and that is when David eventually lets out what has troubled him so much since what happened to his cousin.

Although the mood surely becomes quite melodramatic around that point, the screenplay by Jesse Eisenberg, who also directed and co-produced the film besides handling his lead role in front of the camera (This is his second feature film after “When You Finish Saving the World” (2022), by the way), dexterously swings around many different feelings including pain and joy while staying focused on the personalities of its two different main characters as before. While we come to have more understanding of David’s constant anxiety, we also get to have more empathy on Benji’s frequent mood swings, and we eventually come to care more about them just like their fellow travelers, who are incidentally more than mere background characters surrounding them.

Most of all, the movie depends a lot on the presence and talent of the two excellent actors at its center, and both of them did a fabulous job of illustrating credible characters to remember. Eisenberg, who is always natural whenever he is required to embody human anxiety, is flawless as subtly conveying to us David’s deep concern about himself as well as his cousin, and he is often complemented well by the equally nuanced performance from Kieran Culkin, who will surely get Oscar-nominated for giving one of the best performances in his commendable acting career. Although he was initially known as the younger brother of Macaulay Culkin (Remember that little cousin in “Home Alone” (1990), by the way?), Culkin has diligently built up his own career during last several decades as shown from his Emmy-winning turn in HBO TV drama series “Succession”, and his movingly complex human portrayal here in this film deserves every award and recognition he has received during this Oscar season.

In conclusion, “A Real Pain” shows a lot of understanding and empathy toward two different human figures who could look like, yes, a real pain in the ass. Although it is rather short in its running time (90 minutes), it succinctly and precisely did almost everything it can do with its two main characters, and they will probably stay inside your mind for a long time after it is over. Yes, many things remain uncertain for both of them even at the end of the story, but they come to recognize what and how they feel, and that is surely the start, isn’t it?