A Real Pain: "We are all merely tourists when it comes to someone else’s pain." goes the most import

"We are all merely tourists when it comes to someone else’s pain." goes the most important adage in this film for the Jewish diaspora, and it's not hyperbole. The story follows two opposite-in-every-way cousins on a tour to Poland to honour their late grandmother. Kieran Culkin was made to play Benji Kaplan, as he nails every bit of the dialogue that is handed him, and owned every facial tic, every pause, and sniffle. I don't really care about the Oscars, so if he wins tomorrow, good for him (off the slight chance that he cares). But I think Jesse Eisenberg, the writer and director himself, holds his own as he plays himself: the terribly awkward and charmless cousin, David Kaplan, to Benji. But for a movie about pain, and released in a time like it was (2024), to have nothing to say about the current Jewish state beyond the Jewish experience is a little too on the nose.