After “Succession” went to the grave, the loss for many of us Roman Roy fans has been suffocating. That’s why it feels a bit like receiving artificial respiration when Kieran Culkin appears in a comedy-drama where he once again gets to play a self-pitying and cocky boy.
Admittedly not a rich pig. But the depressed slacker Benji is charmingly broken, and Culkin does an impressive job portraying a cocky bravado masking a deep sadness. “A real pain” begins at the New York airport where Benji reunites with his cousin David (Jesse Eisenberg) for a trip to Poland. They fly after their beloved grandmother has died and left some money for the boys to experience their origins.
The trip lets Benji and David rekindle their old friendship. The boys were inseparable as children but have drifted further apart since David started a family. But it will be a different boys’ trip to say the least. Together with a small tour group, the duo travels to learn about the history of Polish Jews, including visits to concentration camps. It stirs up a generational trauma and results in several finely composed scenes where the legacy of the Holocaust also connects to Benji’s depression. Eisenberg finds the right balance between drama and comedy.
Especially in the harmless boy streaks like planking on the train – a sort of act of resistance for Benji who feels disgusted at traveling in first class on the same carriage as the victims of the Holocaust as they were sent to their deaths. As an actor, Eisenberg is no different from the perpetually neurotic men he is usually typecast as, but together with Culkin, there are some sparks.
Still, something is missing to really grip the audience beyond the brotherly love – will it survive the journey? The plot ends in a mature ambivalence, but the characters – who on paper are somewhat clichéd oddballs (a dork and a nervous rule follower) – would also have benefited from being deepened.
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