Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

A Real Pain Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 29, 2025

There was an iconic ad campaign that ran for years starting in the early sixties to promote a popular New York City bakery which had a well remembered tag line stating You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy Levy's. The tag line became so recognizable that it was actually ported over, at least in part, to a hugely successful comedy album in 1965 called You Don't Have to Be Jewish, an effort which was co-written by Bob Booker who had made the parody album The First Family (that would be the Kennedys) a Number 1 smash on the charts and a Grammy Award winner. In a similar vein some may state you don't have to be Jewish to get A Real Pain, though the story Jesse Eisenberg presents in this generally sweet if occasionally emotionally harrowing tale should certainly resonate even more strongly with Jews, especially those who have relatives who survived the Holocaust. Eisenberg is on hand in an appealing featurette which serves as this disc's sole supplement where he mentions how gobsmacked he was one day to stumble across an ad for concentration camp tours — with lunch included. That huge disconnect provided a spark of inspiration, though the aspect of children (or grandchildren) of survivors taking "luxury vacations" to tour Holocaust sites turns out to be something of a sidebar (if a rather potent one), in a film that is in essence more of a family drama dissecting the roiling relationship between cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji Kaplan (Kieran Culkin, Academy Award nominated for this performance).

It probably goes without saying that even close relatives, as in sisters or brothers, can be hugely disparate in personality traits and general behavior patterns, and so it's probably no big surprise when David and Benji turn out to be diametrically opposed in several key ways. As is amply documented in an undeniably neurotic opening, David is a veritable worrywart, gobbling down medication for his OCD, and just basically kind of nervous as he attempts to reach Benji by phone. Benji on the other hand is a "go with the flow" sort of guy, until, that is, the flow tends to go somewhere Benji doesn't want to follow, in which case he can become absolutely obnoxious to the point of being offensive. That dialectic between the cousins suffuses this "road trip" which sees the pair taking a tour of various Polish Holocaust sites with a group that includes a ragtag assemblage of others, including recent divorcee Marcia (Jennifer Grey), married couple Mark (Daniel Oreskes) and Diane (Liza Sadovy), and Rwandan convert to Judaism Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan). The two plan to ultimately split off from the tour group to visit the childhood home of their grandmother, who has died recently. James (Will Sharpe) is the tour guide, a well informed scholarly type who may nonetheless not quite be able to cope with Benji's theatrics in particular.

Eisenberg's writing is typically excellent (he received the film's other Academy Award nomination, for Best Original Screenplay), especially when he's exploring the fractious relationship between "conformist" David and "free spirit" Benji, but the film still may arguably take some unnecessary detours. Some of these are relatively picayune, as in a rather odd emphasis on David's feet, but one sequence which finds the tourists cavorting around a Polish sculpture honoring World War II is just flat out goofy and goes on way too long, supposedly played for laughs (as Eisenberg mentions in the featurette), but something that adds little to nothing to the narrative and may in fact detract from some of its more probing emotional elements. Other moments are undeniably hilarious in a much more unforced manner, which probably makes the humor all the more effective, and which probably better integrates with some of the disturbing revelations about Benji's emotional dysfunctions in particular.

The film serves as a real showcase for Culkin in particular, who is both charming and utterly reprehensible (at least at times) as Benji. The "and the rest" members of the tour group may not be especially well developed, but Grey is excellent and both Egyiawan and Sharpe are given little moments to shine (Sadovy and Oreskes are basically props, frankly). The film has some worthwhile commentary on what it means to carry the "generational trauma" of being the child or grandchild of a Holocaust survivor, but really the film's more potent emotional content really revolves around the simple idea of "family", with all the fraught subtext that subject typically includes.

A Real Pain Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Real Pain is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Searchlight Pictures and Disney / Buena Vista with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. As of the writing of this review, the IMDb lists the Arri Alexa Mini as having captured the imagery, but fails to specify the resolution of the DI (I suspect 2K). This is a really appealing looking transfer for the most part, with solid and precise renderings of fine detail on practical items like sets and costumes, and with a healthy palette that may arguably have just a bit of a blue undertone in some footage. Eisenberg mentions some of the stylistic decisions made in terms of framings and "following Kieran around", but detail levels remain nicely consistent despite any decisions made in this regard. There are some very low light moments in the concentration camp in particular where shadow detail is not especially abundant.

A Real Pain Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Real Pain features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that is fairly subtle in its use of the surround channels, but which does provide noticeable immersion in the outdoor material in particular. Some of the more bustling moments, as in the bookending scenes at the airport, probably have the most enveloping use of the side and rear channels, but even quieter sections can have nicely placed ambient environmental effects. The score is made up almost entirely of solo piano performances of Chopin pieces, and sounds fine. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional subtitles in several languages are available.

A Real Pain Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Beautiful Fate: Making A Real Pain (HD; 19:46) is a really enjoyable EPK with some nice interviews with Eisenberg, Culkin and Grey.

Packaging features a slipcover. A digital copy is also included.

A Real Pain Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A Real Pain is a rather rare achievement for Eisenberg, in that it's uniquely "personal" to his own experience (as he mentions in the supplemental featurette, that's his actual Great Aunt's house in Poland serving as David and Benji's Grandmother's ancestral home toward the end of the film), while also being more "universal", as I've perhaps hinted at with my opening paragraph above. There's a lot of penetrating emotional content here, which may make just a few of Eisenberg's more fanciful writing decisions a bit questionable, but Culkin is especially riveting in a difficult role that requires him to be both charming and kind of disgusting in about equal measure. My hunch is Culkin probably has the inside track to take home the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in another month or two. Technical merits are solid and the one supplement very enjoyable. Recommended.