I enjoyed my time with A Real Pain. It’s a Kieran Culkin type character (conveniently played by Kieran Culkin) bouncing around Poland with a Jesse Eisenberg type character (conveniently played by Jesse Eisenberg) and the whole film is brought to life by Kieran Culkin’s natural effervescence. Everything else ‐ literally everything else ‐ exists in service to his performance. Which is both good and bad. It’s fun to watch him cook but feels like the rest of the film suffers a little. Like, this is Jennifer Grey’s first major role in decades and she’s got nothing to do except be a foil for Culkin in like two scenes. Feels like a lot of missed opportunities got missed because they were just so focused on Culkin Culkin Culkin.
And that’s fine. Like I said, I enjoyed it. He’s got buckets of charm and, more importantly, he’s also got the chops to pull off the occasional emotional gasp when it’s needed.
But if you were to ask me what the film is about beyond this, I’d struggle. I guess it’s trying to say “people sure are complicated!”? There’s a few other things I can see it reaching for but not quite succeeding. Although I accept this might also be a cultural thing and if I was Jewish or American, I might see this film differently?
Regardless, this is still a solidly entertaining hangout film.
