Film Review: A REAL PAIN

Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin looking as bored as the audience.

For the sake of accuracy this movie, currently streaming on Hulu, should have been titled A Real Pain in the Ass. The "pain" is played annoyingly by Kieran Culkin, a nominee for Best Supporting Actor in this year's Oscar race. All I can say about that is, "Oh, please." His older brother Macaulay, of Home Alone fame, was much more believable at the age of 10 than he is here. 

Written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg who also stars, this instantly forgettable tale about Jewish cousins David (Eisenberg) and Benjy (Culkin) visiting Poland to see the home of their recently deceased grandmother offers little besides a pleasing travelogue of Warsaw and its surrounding countryside. It's pretty. We are supposed to find their strained love/hate relationship -- some of the titular pain -- fascinating. It isn't.

A group visit to a concentration camp -- more pain -- is the only memorable scene, although not nearly as compelling as others depicted in past films about the Holocaust. (An empty gas chamber pales when compared to one filled with naked victims about to die, as seen in Schindler's List.) Otherwise it's just David being nerdy and uptight and Benjy being outrageous and depressed. Along for the ride are four fellow tour members and their guide, none of whom add much to the proceedings. 

Benjy alternately sulks and rants. David frets and frowns constantly. Everyone else watches them. The end.