A Real Pain (2024)

Kieran Culkin walks off with A Real Pain, which is a neat trick, since Jesse Eisenberg wrote it, directed it and stars right next to him. Their late grandmother’s gift sends cousins David and Benji Kaplan, close once and out of sync now, to Poland on a Jewish heritage tour, with a stop planned at her childhood home. David is tightly wound and careful. Benji says every thought out loud, including what he thinks of James, their earnest British guide, and his habit of reciting facts and figures at every stop. Benji is exhausting, and some of his outbursts tip from charming into plain obnoxious. But the film knows exactly when to go quiet, and the group’s visit to Majdanek is handled with total care. It runs a lean 90 minutes and holds a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. An 8.4 because it’s funny about two cousins and serious about history, and it never confuses the two. $84.04 says you pick up a smooth stone on your next walk and can’t quite explain why you kept it.

What works: Culkin’s Benji is funny, magnetic and sad underneath, and Eisenberg balances the jokes and the grief so neither one cheapens the other.

What doesn’t: Benji’s outbursts sometimes cross from charming into obnoxious, and a few of the tour group members never get much beyond a quick sketch.

Who it’s for: Anyone with a cousin, sibling or old friend they love and can’t quite talk to anymore.