Actor Jesse Eisenberg, wrote, directed, and stars in the new movie "A Real Pain", also starring actor Kieran Culkin, who plays Benji Kaplan, who is arguably one of the most annoying, abrasive, and hard-to-watch characters I have ever seen in any movie.
Eisenberg plays Benji's cousin, David Kaplan. David is newly married with a child and a well-adjusted normal adult. Unfortunately, Benji is a disaster who in this story is depicted as someone who likes to hang out at Airports and might even be homeless - a possible fact that was never completely resolved in this story. Benji is portrayed in this story as a free spirit, emotionally complex who also has problems with constant guilt and depression.
This story takes place within a group trip to Poland with four other travelers, including actor Jennifer Gray in an unexpected role, to visit historic mostly Jewish sites in Poland including a concentration camp that has been preserved intact from the day it closed at the end of World War II. During this entire tour, Benji continues to make himself as annoying as possible to all the people in the group including the tour guide. As these interruptions and annoyances continue, David tries to calm Benji down by distracting him from one tirade of rudeness and anger after another throughout the entire tour, and over these two hours, this becomes tedious and hard to sit through because it is way overdone.
When the group tour through Poland ends, David and Benji visit the home of their late grandmother's home in Poland which includes more conflict with her neighbors as they try to leave rocks on her front doorstep.
The acting and dialogue are good throughout, with a story that overall is surprisingly light and seems more like a travelogue of Poland with David trying to calm down his cousin way too often than one would expect from a solid screenplay.
The extremely high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes of 95% are once again, incorrect, with my rating in agreement with the audience ratings of 81% and a moderate recommendation.
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