A Real Pain
Short description
David and Benji are cousins who once were close but have drifted apart. When their grandmother dies, the two of them set out for Poland together to see the places connected to her life and to pay their respects. The trip is meant as a shared act of remembrance, but being alone in each other's company for days on end brings back old frictions and long-standing differences in how they see the world. The journey through their family's past forces both men to confront what they have become and what they mean to each other.
A Real Pain was released in 2024. Jesse Eisenberg wrote and directed it, and also plays David; Kieran Culkin plays Benji. Emma Stone and Ewa Puszczyńska produced alongside Eisenberg. It is his second feature as a director, after When You Finish Saving the World, and it was followed by The Debut. The supporting cast includes Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan and Liza Sadovy.
The production was made for about 3 million dollars and earned roughly 25 million worldwide, a strong return on a modest budget. On IMDb it holds a 7 out of 10 from about 139,000 votes, while on TMDB the rating is 6.8 from a much smaller number of votes. A film critics' rating of 8.3 from 278 reviews places it well above both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The first feature film in the history of cinema for which the filmmakers were granted permission to film on the grounds of a former concentration camp.
- The scenes filmed in Poland, where the characters played by Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg visit the home where their grandmother lived, were shot in an area where the ancestors of director, screenwriter, and actor Jesse Eisenberg once settled.
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