Jessie Eisenberg, soon to be a Polish citizen, wrote, directed and acted in what could have been a travel doc, starring the beautiful country of Poland, if not for the film’s rather serious underlying topic, which is Poland’s place in the Jewish narrative of the Holocaust.
The recently released “A Real Pain” (2024, 90 minutes) is a funny, engaging, and on the surface, lighthearted movie, which, when deconstructed, offers some profound food for thought.
The film’s protagonists are two cousins with completely different personalities and lives: David, played by Jessie Eisenberg, and Benji, played by Kieran Culkin. David is a New Yorker, with a good IT job, a wife, a whiz kid and OCD, while Benji – occupation unknown – is a hippie-looking, pot smoking 30s-something and lives in his mother’s basement. We quickly find out that David and Benji used to spend a lot of time together, but not anymore. As you might predict, while traveling the cousins reestablish their connection, and their relationship – in addition, of course, to Poland in the background – is what holds our attention, and what ultimately makes “A Real Pain” a feel-good and entertaining movie.
They are taking a Jewish heritage tour of Poland which goes, among other places, to a concentration camp. Booked by David, it is a way of honoring their dead grandmother who was born there, in Krasnystaw, and provided the funds for the trip.
With the cousins, on a tour guided by a Brit, is a small, but rather diverse group of travelers, which consists of a couple from Great Britain, a well-off divorcee from California (in this role Jennifer Grey, unforgettable as “Baby” from “Dirty Dancing”) and a Rwandan man who converted to Judaism, after having survived a genocide in Africa, which made him develop a connection to Jews and their religion.
Lublin looks especially attractive in the film, while Kieran Culkin, praised by reviewers for his excellent performance, could easily pass for a true Polish “góral”, when he sports a Zakopane-style hat. Incidentally, it is the only souvenir the cousins bought in Poland. Culkin’s character, Benji, is the most animated, fun, but also, as we find out later in the film, possibly the most troubled member of the group. And on most occasions, a real pain to his cousin.
How is a Jew is supposed to behave, what is a Jew is supposed to feel, when s(he) actually gets to Poland, but all that s(he) ever associates Poland with is the Jewish holocaust?
While in Poland, COULD a Jew even take a train, without being traumatized, when “Polish trains” for them are only the WW II trains to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, Treblinka or Majdanek? Or perhaps, (s)he SHOULD feel traumatized, while taking a train in Poland, as this is “the appropriate” feeling during such a trip-pilgrimage to the place where their ancestors were either murdered, or miraculously survived.
“A Real Pain” poses these difficult questions but not in a heavy-handed way. Actually, it is a surprisingly cheerful and very enjoyable movie, considering its subject.
What might be Poland’s place in the Jewish narrative of the Holocaust? The last scenes of the film provide some answers.
At the end of the trip David and Benji find the house where their grandmother once lived and decide to place two small stones in front of the door. This customary way of remembering the dead, by putting small stones on the graves or tombs, is practiced in Jewish cemeteries, but certainly not in front of people’s houses. Understandably, this action puts the cousins in a mild conflict with a man who lives next door, and who – while standing above them, on a balcony – asks them to remove the stones. The man argues that the stones might endanger a woman who lives behind the door, in front of which the cousins have placed them.
The man is right, the small stones are right in the passageway – which makes sense from the point of view of the film’s narrative – but otherwise, it does not make sense. After all, there is plenty of space on both sides of the landing where the stones would have not been in anybody’s way.
And here we get to the film’s symbolism. For many Jews Poland might be just one big cemetery (in addition, “their cemetery”), hence placing the stones in front of a house seems appropriate, but for the Poles, this “act of commemoration” gets in the way of the living. However, placing the stones right there, so they are in the way of the current occupants of the house, might be a symbolic way of reminding the Poles about the painful past of their country and the need to remember it. This past is supposed to be “in the way” and make somebody’s life less comfortable at least.
The scene has some irony to it as earlier in the movie Benjamin confronts the tour guide, demanding more interactions with Polish people, and more information about Poland (there is hardly any during the trip).
We need to leave something for our readers to ponder after they watch the film, therefore we are not going to mention what happens to the stone David wanted to leave in front of the house in Krasnystaw, and its possible symbolism.
How does one reconcile these two “Polands”, one a “sacred burial ground”, and one full of beauty, charm and very-much-alive people? Perhaps, by following Jessie Eisenberg’s example, and becoming a Polish citizen.
Text: Alina Klin
