A Real Pain

In A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg delivers not just a film but a thesis disguised as a comedy, a travelogue, and a bitter sibling drama. Anchored by Kieran Culkin’s restless, raw performance, the film wrestles with questions that most films wouldn’t dare ask aloud: Is it right to envy pain? Can you inherit trauma like property? What’s the difference between remembering and rebranding?

Culkin plays Benji, the erratic and emotionally volatile cousin to Eisenberg’s neurotic David. They embark on a Holocaust heritage tour across Eastern Europe, ostensibly to retrace their grandmother’s steps—but for Benji, the journey is about something deeper, more volatile: he wants to feel something real. More specifically, he wants to feel the real pain of the Holocaust. Not just witness it, not just mourn it, but somehow own it.

This premise is both absurd and uncomfortably relatable. In a world of curated suffering—where grief is packaged into social media posts, and virtue signaling has become an Olympic sport—Benji’s desire to truly suffer, to escape the numbing irony of modern life, is both ridiculous and honest. His envy of historical trauma might seem perverse, but it exposes a cultural emptiness that many quietly recognize: the fear that our own pain isn’t "real" enough.

Throughout the tour, Benji lashes out at fellow participants who, to him, perform grief rather than experience it. He mocks them for their quiet politeness, their Instagram stories, their disconnection. “You weren’t there,” he snarls, but it’s unclear whether he’s accusing them, or himself. In one standout scene, Benji climbs onto a rooftop and breaks down, crashing out in every sense of the word—emotionally, spiritually, narratively. It’s a cry for authenticity in a world that rewards performance.

But here’s the central conflict: is Benji seeking truth, or is he exploiting someone else’s trauma for moral clout? Is this a quest for empathy, or a form of spiritual colonialism? The film doesn’t hand us easy answers. Instead, it complicates them. His breakdown may be sincere, but it’s still about him. And that’s the trap of trying to "experience" someone else’s pain—it always risks becoming a kind of moral tourism.

Eisenberg’s screenplay deftly skewers both ironic detachment and performative outrage. In one memorable moment, the tour guide—herself weathered by years of rote empathy—crashes out, too, silently breaking in front of her guests. No words. Just silence. And it's devastating. It reminds us that real pain doesn’t need a caption. It doesn’t need to be explained or aestheticized. It just is.

So are we supposed to laugh at Benji? Often, yes. His outbursts are cringey, his righteousness self-centered. But we’re also meant to see ourselves in him—the part that’s numb, the part that scrolls through genocide documentaries while eating dinner, the part that craves sincerity in a world that’s forgotten how to grieve properly. And in that way, we do sympathize with him, despite ourselves.

A Real Pain is ultimately less about the Holocaust and more about the crisis of modern empathy. It dares to suggest that irony is no longer armor—it’s anesthesia. And in doing so, it offers no answers, only uncomfortable reflections.