MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Jesse Eisenberg's new movie, "A Real Pain," is based on his own family history. Eisenberg cast himself and "Succession's" Kieran Culkin as polar opposites. Critic Bob Mondello says the result is an odd-couple, road-trip comedy that, surprisingly, also prompts tears.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Cousins David and Benji have been best pals since infancy. Now in their early 30s, David is antsy, anxious and neurotic - which is to say he's played by Jesse Eisenberg. Kieran Culkin's Benji is loose, cool, and, to David's distress at the film's start. not picking up his phone.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A REAL PAIN")
AUTOMATED VOICE: Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system.
KIERAN CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) Boner...
AUTOMATED VOICE: ...Is not available.
JESSE EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) Hey, Benji. I just got to the airport. I really hope you left already.
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan, shouting) David.
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) Whoa (ph).
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan, laughter).
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) Oh, God. You made it.
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) What's up, cuz (ph)?
MONDELLO: They are headed to Poland, on what someone will later call a Holocaust tour, to see the village their late grandmother hailed from. Both have come prepared - David with a carefully planned itinerary, Benji with supplies.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A REAL PAIN")
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) Wait. You're not, like, taking weed into Poland, are you?
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) Uh, yeah - nobody...
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) Benji?
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) They don't give a (expletive) about that stuff, man. I'm telling you.
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) I think they very much do.
MONDELLO: Arriving in Warsaw, they meet their mostly older group, which includes a recent divorcee, a Rwandan genocide survivor and a guide who's not Jewish, but says he's obsessed with the Jewish experience. In a way, so are David and Benji.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A REAL PAIN")
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) In some parallel black hole universe, you and I are Polish, and we've probably got, like, long beards, and we can't shake hands with women.
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) Yeah, that's funny. You know, every time I see, like, one of those Hasidic guys on the street, I always just think, like, there but for the grace of no God go I. You know?
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) What?
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) Oh, nothing. It's just, like, a dumb joke.
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) Oh, that's cool.
MONDELLO: Benji's already moved on...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A REAL PAIN")
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) Look at her.
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) Who?
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) That woman, Marcia. She's walking alone. We should go to talk to her.
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) We just met her.
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) Yeah, but she's got this, like, deep sadness behind her eyes, you know?
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) She does?
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan). Yeah. You didn't notice that?
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) During the introductions? No.
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) I think we should check on her.
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) Benji, maybe she wants to be alone.
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) No one wants to be alone, Dave. OK, I'm going to check it out.
MONDELLO: ...Leaving David alone.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A REAL PAIN")
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) Hey. Why are you walking alone? Are you a big loser?
JENNIFER GREY: (As Marcia, laughter).
MONDELLO: Kieran Culkin makes Benji a force of nature - a man child who's equal parts charming and exasperating, whether he's insisting everyone acknowledge the weirdness of being Jews in first class on a train in Poland or letting David miss their stop, then solving that by hopping a train back for which they don't have tickets.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A REAL PAIN")
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) We stay moving. We stay light. We stay agile. The conductor's going to come through taking tickets. We tell him we're going to the bathroom.
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) The bathroom, OK.
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) He gets to the back of the train, he's going to start heading towards the front, looking for stragglers.
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) Sorry, we're the stragglers?
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) Yeah. By the time he gets to the front, the train is going to be in the station and we're home free.
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) This is so stupid. Tickets are probably, like, 12 bucks.
CULKIN: (As Benji Kaplan) It's the principle of the thing. We shouldn't have to pay for train tickets in Poland. This is our country.
EISENBERG: (As David Kaplan) No, it's not. It was our country. They kicked us out 'cause they thought we were cheap.
MONDELLO: Eisenberg's script and direction are clever at every turn. But the filmmaker is also adept at shifting the tone - visits to a Jewish cemetery and a concentration camp that take the characters out of their contemporary pain and into historical trauma.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU AIN'T ALONE")
ALABAMA SHAKES: (Singing) If you're going to cry, cry with me.
MONDELLO: All of this grounded in the real. When David and Benji separate from the tour group to look for their late grandmother's home, the house they end up at is one that was once owned by filmmaker Jesse Eisenberg's family. The characters' moments there are no less awkward and funny - but resonant? Enormously so, which is this always-surprising comedy's biggest surprise - real feeling. Opinions may differ on which cousin is the bigger pain in "A Real Pain," but by the end of their intimate road trip, Eisenberg's made sure that you're feeling both of them.
MONDELLO: I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF FREDERIC CHOPIN'S "12 ETUDES, OP. 10: NO. 4 IN C-SHARP MINOR") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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