There are some films that seem to get it right effortlessly. A Real Pain, written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, was made on a budget of $3m. It’s less than 90 minutes long and tells a straightforward story, without any narrative trickery, set over just a few days. Yet it’s completely captivating.
Cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji Kaplan (Kieran Culkin, Roman Roy in Succession) meet up at the airport, setting off on a week-long “Holocaust tour” in Poland, in memory of their late grandmother Dory, a tough Holocaust survivor. They used to be close but have grown apart and not seen each other for a while.
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