Jesse Eisenberg’s second feature as writer-director shows a massive leap in maturity, thanks in large part to the personal subject matter at its heart. A Real Pain isn’t necessarily an autobiographical film for the multi-hyphenate star, but there are elements which he has explicitly stated are pulled from real-life details about his family history. It’s a free-wheeling road trip film that visits pain both personal and historical, anchored by an ensemble that gels together as well as any film this year.

Eisenberg is ostensibly the lead as David, a capital-A type neurotic who ventures to Poland with his cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin) in a mission to visit their recently deceased grandmother’s hometown. The disparity in the pair’s personalities can’t be wider from the start of A Real Pain, but there’s a real sense of familiarity instilled from the ways each of the men react to any given situation. Of course, David’s impulse is to diffuse or pretend something doesn’t bother him, while Benji can hardly let a thought go through his mind without voicing it enthusiastically.

Hidden below the surface of the cousins’ journey to better know their grandmother is the grief of her death, which hits Benji harder than David. Their relationship was perhaps his closest and most authentic, especially after David grew more distant in his adulthood. Culkin, who won an Emmy as the shit-talking Roman Roy on Succession, doesn’t stray too far outside his comfort zone as Benji, but it’s hard to keep your eyes off him to see what he’ll say next. It’s often hard to tell where the script ends and Culkin’s improv begins. Culkin does a great deal of heavy lifting on behalf of the script, which could have fleshed out his relationship with his grandmother in better detail. Eisenberg’s performance shouldn’t be overlooked, either, especially in a ranting monologue about midway through. It’s easily his best performance since The Social Network.

Throughout their trip, Benji and David, who are joined by fellow Jews on their own journeys of discovery, visit a number of historical landmarks which chronicle the Jewish people’s struggles in World War II. A Real Pain’s most potent scene comes as they visit a concentration camp, where David and Benji’s grandmother was sent as a child. Eisenberg’s smartest storytelling decision is in how pain and grief can be a shared, communal experience, where suffering in isolation is perhaps the worst kind of suffering.

The bulk of the film leans heavily comedic, but it’s the heavier, more dramatic moments that cut through like a knife. Eisenberg has made an insightful film that can reach across oceans and generations with characters who feel genuine and relatable. Actors turning behind the camera can provide mixed results, but A Real Pain shows that Eisenberg has a genuine talent for crafting stories on a small scale that expand beyond their limited confines.

A Real Pain was screened as the Opening Night film at the 2024 Heartland International Film Festival. Fox Searchlight will release it on October 18.

OSCAR POTENTIAL:

• I feel confident that Kieran Culkin will receive a Supporting Actor nomination and, based on the thin competition this year, could easily win.
• With Searchlight behind A Real Pain, I could also see the film receiving a nomination in Original Screenplay.