Jesse Eisenberg has done the world a favour with this movie.
At a time when empathy seems to be diminishing across the globe, he's delivered a touching, intelligent, funny and achingly sad tale of love, loss and grief.
As well as writing, directing, and co-producing A Real Pain, he also stars alongside Kieran Culkin as two cousins, David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Culkin) who head from New York to Poland to visit a concentration camp and the birthplace of their recently-deceased grandmother.
It's a Jewish heritage tour and their fellow travellers include the recently divorced Marcia (Jennifer Grey), married couple Mark (Daniel Oreskes) and Diane (Liza Sadovy), Rwandan genocide survivor and Jewish convert Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan).
They're led around Warsaw, Lublin and the Majdanek concentration camp by British guide James (Will Sharpe), a genial gentile with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Jewish experience.
But ultimately the film's about the complicated bond between David and Benji.
The two cousins are chalk and cheese. While David is a classic New York neurotic mix of suppressed anxiety and self-restraint, Benji is charmingly affabile, emotionally unstable and annoyingly candid. Culkin does a remarkable job of portaying a gregarious loner with a mercurial personality.
It's rare that a film can be this funny while also heartbreaking, so kudos to Eisenberg for striking an impressive balance that augurs well for his future behind a camera. He also puts in a fine acting shift.
But Kieran Culkin casts an enormous emotional shadow here and shows that his award-winning portrayal of Roman Roy in Succession will not be a career-defining role.
He'll have a hell of a job beating Benji though. Three days after seeing A Real Pain I can't get him out of my head. No spoilers, but the final scene hits like a baseball bat to the stomach.
Culkin has already won a Golden Globe for his quite astonishing performance. If there's any justice, he'll add an Ocar to that in the upcoming Academy Awards.
I cannot recommend this film highly enough. I insist you go and see it. It will improve your life.
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