The Reel Review
Two cousins, one a free-spirited extrovert and the other one very reserved, take part in a guided tour through Poland as a tribute to their beloved late grandmother who was born there. During their journey old family issues arise, in this dramedy starring Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg, who also wrote and directed the film.

Set to a terrific travelogue backdrop of Poland and a score featuring songs from Chopin, A Real Pain initially appears to be yet another goofy buddy movie, but it is actually a really sweet and refreshingly introspective tale about love, grief and depression, and how they shape our own personalities and interactions with others.

Eisenberg’s screenplay deftly balances humor with solemn emotions, his performance the perfect foil to Culkin’s as the infuriatingly inappropriate but lovable, free-spirited cousin. Eisenberg’s heartfelt restaurant monologue will resonate with anyone dealing with complicated family members. A Real Pain is a really sweet, thought-provoking film.
REEL FACTS
• The characters in the film visit the Nazi German concentration camp Majdanek near the Polish city of Lublin. From 1941 to 1944, German Nazis murdered about 80,000 people there, 59,000 of whom were Jews and the rest mainly members of the intelligentsia and the resistance movement.
• A Real Pain is only the second non-documentary feature film allowed to film inside a concentration camp, after the 2008 WWII Jewish resistance drama Defiance, which stars Daniel Craig and Liev Schroeder.

• Jennifer Grey recently lost her home in the deadly Los Angeles wildfires.