14/30
Unlikely cousins meet on a drive through Poland to pay their last respects to their beloved grandmother. But in the background of their family history, old tensions flare up again. When Benji and David visit their grandmother in Poland, this is where Jesse Eisenberg’s real ancestors settled in the diaspora. Benji Kaplan: We stay moving, we stay light, we stay nimble.David Kaplan: Yes.Benji Kaplan: The conductor will come soon and take the tickets. We tell him we’re going to the bathroom.David Kaplan: WC.Benji Kaplan: He gets on the back of the train and goes to the front to check if there’s any passageways.David Kaplan: Excuse me, are we lost?Benji Kaplan: Yes. When he gets to the front, the train is already at the station and we have arrived.
Tickets will probably cost about twelve dollars.Benji Kaplan: It’s about the principle. We should not pay for train tickets in Poland. David Kaplan: No, it’s not, it was our country. They kicked us out because they thought we were scarce. Aired on CBS News Sunday Morning: Episode #46.44 (2024). 12 Etudes, op.
25, No. Jesse Eisenberg’s second work as a writer and director is unusual. A REAL PAIN has something of Richard Linklater’s BEFORE trilogy in its DNA, and a certain legacy of Michael Winterbottom’s TRIP series as well. The fluctuating pace, the lazy cinematography that asks you to look beyond the surface of the tourist attractions, the dialogue that meanders to reveal the purpose of a modest and unstructured life, the complete lack of “bad guys”, the almost complete absence of overt conflict, the slightest hint of a goal that drives the plot, other than the execution of a simple itinerary. .. Real pain has all these realistic features of the earlier, more spiritual, films that strengthen the common life.
I’m not sure what it was that I was never really able to get hooked on this movie. I think a lot of it has to do with all the supporting characters (that is, everyone except the cousins played by Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin). Will Sharpe’s non-Jewish guide, a Rwandan convert, an old couple, a hot divorcee… the characters are all very simple, very conventional, very boring. The Actors who play them are good, but they don’t have much to do and therefore seem unnatural and lifeless, more like sets than people. Eisenberg knows how to use a camera; he knows how to use the right cinematic elements.
Nothing ever suggests that these people exist outside of the moments we see them, which could perhaps have been remedied with a little more spontaneous improvisation on the part of the cast. Eisenberg and especially Culkin are better in this regard, but a lot of what they say and do still seems rather crass and “scripted”. Eisenberg’s “workaholic salesman with OCD” is largely one-dimensional, and the few moments his character does go beyond that facade feel more like forced acting than a real insight into something deeper. Culkin is gorgeous—perhaps a vision of his character in The Flash if Roman Roy really cared about people—but I think that’s just down to Culkin’s talent; he somehow manages to exceed what he has at his disposal. This is a decent indie film with a few good laughs, a few interesting ideas, a memorable tour of Poland and a solid performance by Culkin.
10/18 Line of Events L’histoire de Mufasa, le roi bien-aimé de la Terre des Lions, est racontée par Timon et Pum
42/20 Line of Events Standing on the Shoulders of Kitties: The Bubbles and the Shitrockers Story suit Bubbles et son gro
21/17 Line of Events A group of supervillains are recruited to go on missions for the government. MADNESS MADNESS 2024 W
