A Real Pain

Jesse Eisenberg's 2024 film follows two cousins travelling to Poland to see their grandmother's home town. Their temperaments are opposites. As the group tour goes on the tension rises. The film gives grief and depression together with comedy; the narrative makes the impossibility of comparing pain its real subject. Kieran Culkin won an Academy Award in a supporting role. The director also plays a lead. Filming took place at a concentration camp. Who it's for: those who like bittersweet road movies. Who it's not for: viewers uncomfortable with memorials to genocide used inside a narrative; the film works carefully at that balance.