A Real Pain: A thoughtful, touching drama

A Real Pain (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for drug use and relentless profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.17.24

This seems to be the season for notable entries by actors turned directors.

 

Just a few weeks ago, Anna Kendrick made an impressive directorial debut with the suspenseful Woman of the Hour, in which she also starred.

 

Tour guide James (Will Sharpe, foreground) and the rest of their small group fail to
notice when Benji (Kieran Culkin, in red shorts) impulsively embarrasses his
cousin David (Jesse Eisenberg) with a bear hug.

Jesse Eisenberg, still remembered for his Oscar-nominated performance in 2010’s The Social Network, has done her one better; he wrote, directed and co-stars in this intensely emotional relationship drama. It earned Eisenberg the Walda Salt Screenwriting Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and no surprise; this painfully raw study of estrangement often is difficult to endure, because it feels so intimately real.

Equal credit, as well, for the lead performances by Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin.

 

New York-based David (Eisenberg) and his estranged cousin Benji (Culkin) reunite at an airport, en route to Warsaw for a Polish Holocaust history group tour. The trip has been made possible by money left by their recently deceased grandmother, and is prompted by their mutual desire to visit the home in which she lived, for many years.

 

Jewish history and the Holocaust are a grim backdrop to a character dynamic already heavy with unspoken angst.

 

The two men couldn’t be less alike. The workaholic David is sweet and smart, but shy, emotionally repressed and impaired by OCD tics partly dampened by prescription meds. He further holds himself together via lists, itineraries and meticulous planning.

 

This isn’t far from Eisenberg’s frequent acting wheelhouse; his flustered, overly apologetic nebbishes have long been a signature. But he’s extremely adept at it, and David’s deer-in-the-headlights reactions to his cousin’s antics are credibly painful.

 

The bipolar, relentlessly profane Benji navigates wild mood swings with marginal success. At his best, he’s cheery and personable: the life of the party. But in the blink of an eye, he turns rude, antagonistic and needlessly candid, insisting that everybody subscribe to his bent philosophy of the moment.

 

He self-medicates with marijuana and alcohol, which doesn’t help; he often doesn’t remember his previous day’s boorish behavior.

 

Culkin is all over the map; Benji’s manic intensity often lands like a punch in the gut, and his irresponsibility is infuriating. It’s hard to imagine spending even five minutes with this guy; Culkin’s performance leaps from the screen, as if daring us to remain in our seats.

I Used to Be Famous: Hits the right notes

I Used to Be Famous (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated TV-14, for occasional profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

Peaking early can be a terrible curse.

 

Back in the early uh-ohs, Vince lived large as the front man of an über-famous teenage boy band, Stereo Dream.

 

Vince (Ed Skrein, left) handles the melody on his portable keyboard, while Stevie
(Leo Long) joyfully maintains a steady beat on a "drum set" made of found objects.

Alas, he lacked the talent to survive the transition to adulthood.

Flash-forward to today, which finds Vince (Ed Skrein) scrambling for a living in the streets of Peckham, dragging his music kit behind him on a modified ironing board (a suitably pathetic visual touch). And to rub salt in the wound, former band mate Austin (Eoin Macken) did have the artistic chops for a wildly successful solo career: a constant reminder of the life Vince desperately wishes he could have.

 

Then, one day, Vince’s busking efforts are interrupted — nay, complemented — by a shy young man beating his drumsticks in time to the music. Vince soon learns that this is Stevie (Leo Long), a mildly autistic lad carefully monitored by his protective mother, Amber (Eleanor Matsuura).

 

Vince immediately (rashly?) believes that Stevie might be the “secret sauce” that could turn them into a successful two-man act. Amber, mindful of her son’s inability to handle being the center of attention, has her doubts.

 

Matters aren’t helped by the fact that the disheveled Vince has the diplomatic subtlety of a bull in a china shop.

 

Director/co-writer Eddie Sternberg’s sweet little film, expanded from his 17-minute 2015 short subject of the same title, offers no surprises; the story, co-written with Zak Klein, is fairly predictable (albeit with a poignant third-act twist).

 

That said, the tone and approach are as earnest as all three lead actors; it’s also nice to see a story that depicts autism with respect and compassion. Credit for this, in great part, goes to Long: neurodivergent in real life, and both an accomplished drummer and quietly persuasive actor.

 

The drama emerges from the credibly endearing manner in which both Vince and Stevie struggle to become better versions of themselves.