24/34
David Kaplan: Bathroom
Scenario
The estranged cousins reunite on a tour of Poland in honor of their beloved grandmother, but their old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. When Benji and David visit his grandmother’s house in Poland, it’s where Jesse Eisenberg’s actual ancestors settled in the diaspora. Benji Kaplan: We keep moving, we stay light, we stay nimble. David Kaplan: Yes, Benji Kaplan: The conductor will come by, take the tickets, we’ll tell him we’re going to the toilet. Benji Kaplan: He reaches the back of the train, moves to the front looking for stragglers. David Kaplan: Excuse me, are we late? Benji Kaplan: Yes, when he reaches the front, the train will be at the station and we will be free.
This is our country
David Kaplan: That’s so stupid. Tickets are probably around twelve dollars. Benji Kaplan: That’s the principle of the thing. We should not pay for train tickets in Poland. David Kaplan: No, it wasn’t, it was our country. They kicked us out because they thought we were cheap. Featured on CBS News Sunday Morning: Episode #46.44 (2024).
3 in F Major Written by Frederic Chopin Performed by Tzvi Erez
12 etudes, op. 25, no. Jesse Eisenberg’s second attempt as a writer and director is something unconventional. There’s something of Richard Linklater’s BEFORE trilogy in A REAL PAIN’s DNA, with some recognizable heritage from Michael Winterbottom’s TRIP series. The pacing of the walk, the sluggish cinematography that asks you to peer beneath the surface of touristy places, the dialogue that meanders through an unpretentious, unstructured unpacking of the meaning of life, the complete absence of any “bad guys”, the almost complete absence of any direct conflict, the slightest hint of any guiding goal the plot beyond the completion of a simple plan… True Pain shares all these realistic characteristics with those earlier, more spiritual and life-giving films. Yet somehow…
it doesn’t quite work out
I’m not sure what was wrong with that, why I never really got into it in this movie. I think a big part of this has to do with all the secondary characters (i.e. everyone except the cousins played by Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin). Will Sharpe’s gentile tour guide, the Rwandan convert, the elderly couple, the sexy divorcee… all the characters are too basic, too conventional, too boring. The actors who play them are good, but they can’t do much, so they seem artificial and lifeless, more like decorations than people. Eisenberg knows how to direct the camera, I think; he knows how to put the right cinematic elements in place.
But maybe he doesn’t know how to direct actors, or maybe he just doesn’t know how to write characters
There’s no indication that these people exist outside of the moments in which we see them, which could perhaps be remedied with some more spontaneous improvisation from the actors. Eisenberg and especially Culkin are better in this regard, but there is still something rather stiff and “scripted” about most of what they say and do. Eisenberg’s “workaholic with obsessive-compulsive disorder” he’s mostly one-dimensional, and the few times his character expands beyond this facade it feels more like forced acting than any real insight into anything deeper. Culkin is gorgeous—maybe a glimpse of his character in Succession, if Roman Roy really cares people—but I think that’s just a testament to Culkin’s talent; he somehow manages to transcend what he’s been given to do. This is a decent independent film, with good laughs, interesting ideas, a memorable tour of Poland, and a solid performance from Culkin.
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