Cousins on a heritage trip to Poland

 

  Jesse Eisenberg directs himself and Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain, a movie about two cousins who take a heritage trip to Poland. The trip's planned culmination involves a visit to the house where the cousins' late grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, once lived. 

   Before reaching their destination, the men travel with a small tour group to the site of the Warsaw ghetto, various spots in the city of Lublin, and to Majdanek, the death camp constructed not far outside the Lublin city limits. 

    Notably, the trip was financed by the cousins' grandmother; she must have wanted these sometimes self-absorbed men to get a taste of their bitter family history. They do, and we get a movie that's not weighted by the self-seriousness we might expect. The cousins don't always know how to react during their potentially unsettling travelogue.

   As it happens. I've been to many of the places the cousins visit -- although for different reasons. I can tell you from experience that it's impossible to find yourself at some of these sites without being struck by conflicting impressions.

   You think, "I'm OK. The sky has a preternatural clarity. So how do I reconcile that with the feeling that I'm walking through a mass graveyard?"

  Some commentators have discussed A Real Pain in terms of Jewish characters who are three generations removed from the Holocaust. Can they relate to what they're seeing? If so, how? Is humor allowed? Can they enjoy a meal in the luxury car of an express train without remembering the  boxcars that transported so many Jews to their deaths?

   The relationship between the two cousins begins to take shape at the airport before their flight to Warsaw. Born two weeks apart, the cousins were close as kids but drifted apart. Jittery and ill at ease, Eisenberg's David is married. He has a son and a stable job. Charming, quick-witted. and emotionally unsettled, Culkin's Benji is at loose ends. 

   The movie's title deserves unpacking: Benji can be a  pain when it comes to ignoring proprieties. He often masks his hostility by insisting that he's being playful. The Holocaust -- more referenced than explored -- provides another source of pain. And David's concern about and estrangement from his cousin gnaws at him.

   In Poland, David and Benji are joined on their tour by Jennifer Grey, as a woman readjusting her life after a divorce, Kurt Egyiawan, as a convert to Judaism who survived the Rwandan genocide; and Liza Sadovy and Daniel Oreskes, as a married couple who want to learn something about their roots. 

   Will Sharpe portrays a British tour guide who, at one point, becomes a target for Benji's sarcasm. The guide has information, but Benji senses he doesn't feel the story in his gut.

   Anyone who has seen Culkin in Succession knows he can dazzle with a quicksilver wit that conceals irritations that spill into torment. His character is aptly described by David as someone who can light up a room upon entry and then find ways to piss on everyone and everything in it. 

   Eisenberg wisely resists overdramatizing, particularly when the group visits Majdanek. They and we know what happened there. Images of barracks, ovens, and a gas chamber speak for themselves. 

    For Jews, responding to a trip to Poland involves memory, history, emotion, and an appreciation for the role distance and time play in shaping perception. Eisenberg's film doesn't always reflect that complexity but it knows these characters and allows them to bring their own sensibilities on a journey that leaves them to consider where they've been, and perhaps, where they're going.

    But that would be another movie.