Jesse Eisenberg’s Second Directorial Feature Is A Heartfelt Dramedy

Jesse Eisenberg returned to the 2024 Sundance Film Festival with his second directorial feature, the intimate and heartfelt A Real Pain. The actor’s first directorial feature, When You Finish Saving the World, had its fair share of stumbling blocks, but its biggest issue was that it felt disconnected and trite. A Real Pain, on the other hand, showcases Eisenberg’s writing and directing skills in a better light. It has its lighthearted moments, but in its exploration of complicated familial relationships and generational trauma and the different ways it affects people, Eisenberg, who also stars opposite Kieran Culkin, crafts something more honest.

A Real Pain Revisits The Pain Of The Past & Present

The film is a family dramedy more than anything, and it manages to handle the complicated relationship between David and Benji with thought and reflection. In one scene, David admits his frustration with Benji and wanting to have his charm and social abilities. Benji, on the other hand, reminisces about the old days hanging with his cousin, grieving his late grandmother, who was the only one he felt understood him. The two couldn’t be more different, but they’re bound together by their Jewish Polish history and the understanding of generational trauma they often don’t know how to talk about.

That becomes the most apparent through Benji’s outbursts. He’s clearly not okay, and he’s both the life of their heritage tour group and the one who makes them feel occasionally uncomfortable. David struggles to understand Benji, and vice versa, and they’re both trying to understand who the other is today versus who they used to be. There’s a lot of pain they don’t know how to process, and their trip is both a healing moment and a complex one they can’t fully grasp, much less know how to contend with.

The Film Could’ve Delved Further Into Benji’s Pain

Eisenberg’s script is grounded and, despite the context of their Poland trip, the film isn’t without its humor. Kieran Culkin provides most of the moments of levity, and he’s great at playing a chaotic but wounded man, the brightness behind his eyes dimmed because of the hurt he doesn’t express. It’s a pain the film should have focused on more. There’s a lot of vagueness surrounding Benji being the way he is and why, and a personal revelation near the end of the film made me wonder why the story so easily side-steps Benji’s sadness when it’s mentioned so often.

A Real Pain doesn’t provide many answers, nor does it fully resolve the relationship between Benji and David, but there’s a better understanding between them, even if the end circles back to reflect the beginning. Still, there could’ve been more depth to Benji’s journey, as there remains quite a few hanging threads about his life that don’t paint the fullest picture. Why is he still living in his mother’s basement? Why does he feel no one understands him? Is it because David has stopped paying as much attention to him? These are questions the characters’ conversations could have pushed further.

Despite these shortcomings, A Real Pain is the kind of film that engages with heritage and, crucially, familial bonds that are strong enough but also falling apart. With personal and generational trauma at the forefront of the story, Eisenberg delivers a heartwarming film that strengthens family ties and underscores the difficulty in speaking about the pain between its members, no matter how close they used to be. There are some relationships that need time to heal, and the film, with an ending that doesn’t wrap everything up all nice and neat, understands that.