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A REAL PAIN

Jesse Eisenberg has nothing to prove; he has already staked his claim as an actor, writer, and director. But A Real Pain digs deeper than he ever has before; even the film’s title has multiple meanings. The movie simmers and occasionally boils over. The end result is a satisfying brew (to stretch a metaphor).

As a writer he and Kieran Culkin share the emotional burden of the story. Culkin’s is the showier performance but Eisenberg’s quieter demeanor reveals just as much about him as Culkin does, in a different way. They both excel in bringing these recognizable characters to life.

The actors portray cousins who have been close all of their lives, through many ups and downs. Eisenberg has followed a conventional path and has a job, a wife and child and a townhouse in the City. Culkin is a floater who has yet to “find” himself. There is still much that remains unsaid between them, and some of it trickles out as they join a small tour group exploring Warsaw, Poland, their grandmother’s birthplace and their family’s ancestral home.

Although they have clung to each other through good times and bad, over the course of this trip they find themselves alternately setting off sparks and begging forgiveness, which is apparently nothing new. Working out their relationship in the midst of strangers—fellow tourists—makes it twice as awkward as it would be on their home turf in New York.

All of this is set to piano renditions of compositions by Poland’s most famous composer, Frédéric Chopin.

It’s axiomatic that a small-scale film costs less to make and therefore doesn’t need to be wildly popular to be deemed a success. I suspect Eisenberg has his own markers for success and if so, I hope he is patting himself on the back. A Real Pain is a very good movie.

Leonard Maltin is one of the world’s most respected film critics and historians. He is best known for his widely-used reference work Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide and its companion volume Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide, now in its third edition, as well as his thirty-year run on television’s Entertainment Tonight. He teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and appears regularly on Reelz Channel and Turner Classic Movies. His books include The 151 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, The Great Movie Comedians, The Disney Films, The Art of the Cinematographer, Movie Comedy Teams, The Great American Broadcast, and Leonard Maltin’s Movie Encyclopedia. He served two terms as President of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, is a voting member of the National Film Registry, and was appointed by the Librarian of Congress to sit on the Board of Directors of the National Film Preservation Foundation. He hosted and co-produced the popular Walt Disney Treasures DVD series and has appeared on innumerable television programs and documentaries. He has been the recipient of awards from the American Society of Cinematographers, the Telluride Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, and San Diego’s Comic-Con International. Perhaps the pinnacle of his career was his appearance in a now-classic episode of South Park. (Or was it Carmela consulting his Movie Guide on an episode of The Sopranos?) He holds court at leonardmaltin.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook; you can also listen to him on his weekly podcast: Maltin on Movies. — [Artwork by Drew Friedman]

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