I knew who starred in A Real Pain going into the theater but I didn’t realize Jesse Eisenberg both wrote and directed it. And while he gave Kieran Culkin the showier role, he sure wrote himself something to gnaw on for days.

The flick stars Eisenberg and Culkin as cousins who travel to Warsaw for a holocaust tour and to visit their grandma’s old home. They are very different people and relate to the other tourists (and the guide) in very, very different ways.

Eisenberg and Culkin create two wildly fleshed out characters. We don’t know much about them beyond their surface level quirks at first but the script and the acting fill in the gaps in terrific ways. Eisenberg kind of plays an Eisenberg character… shy, nervous, and introverted. Culkin plays the worst type of human… the oblivious extrovert who is always right… even when he’s contradicting himself. <shudder>

The thing about Eisenberg is that he seems like he’s doing his usual thing at first. But he doesn’t have the same level of nervous energy and he’s even more reserved than usual. He also wrote himself some serious bombshell Oscar clip material that evolves naturally out of the script.

Culkin adds extra depth to his tiresome, exhausting, egotistical, and oblivious character. Eisenberg’s introvert loves him but also knows he’s way too much. It’s this borderline bipolar energy that makes him fascinating even as you want to cut his tongue out with a fiery hot pincer. It’s a far more showy role but it contains within it as much nuance as Eisenberg delivers.

The film itself is a dramady with the occasional laugh in between more serious moments. I had fun with it but it’s far more serious and teeth-grating than hilarious. But there’s also grim pathos in Eisenberg’s big monolog as well as in a visit to a concentration camp.

The title of the movie also has dual meaning and I adored the way its on-the-nose meaning inhabits every second of the film. But then it pulls a late stage switch with its alternate meaning in a single fantastic still frame at the very end of the movie.

This is a very strong, thoughtful, emotional, and teeth-grating film. I enjoyed all the actors and was most impressed in Eisenberg’s writing and directing. Somewhere in there is some Oscar-worth material if we’re lucky.

Score: 89