There are some actors who seem to constantly play the same type of character over and over mainly because it’s a reflection of how they are in real life.
Jesse Eisenberg is one of those actors. While the geeky, nerdy ramblings that he used to do worked perfectly when he was younger, now it just seems irritating. After his role as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, he really should’ve have retired the whole persona rather than continuing it for the next 15 years and probably onward.
For what it’s worth, he was able to turn it into a way to make Zuckerberg more irritating and unlikeable. It might be one of the best villainous roles ever. It’s a shame the movie couldn’t have use the title Revenge of the Nerds, because he definitely played a bad person who has created social media for “friends” but seems to despise everyone around him. On the flip side, can we all agree he was wrongly cast as Lex Luthor in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and those Justice League movies?
A Real Pain is a flashback to the indie movie craze of the 1990s and 2000s, when movies relied more on dialogue and characters rather than actions. This is also the era that spawned the nauseous “Mumblecore” genre which gave us Greta Gerwig and the Duplass brothers. Having seen way too many independent movies of this era, I can safely say they missed the story structure and characters as they tried to replicate The Coen Brothers, Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino.
This is supposed to be a road trip movie but from the start you’re hoping these two characters aren’t sitting next to you. For what it’s worth, Kieran Culkin brings some depth and nuance to the performance as the free-spirited trope as Benji Kaplan. But we can see it’s all a fraud. I have a theory based on observations that most “extroverts” are starved for attention. They have to alert their presence every time they go somewhere and they have to make even the most simplest tasks an obstacle that only they can complete.
Culkin, who began acting as a child more or less forced by his father, Kit, to do so has broken free from the shadow of his older brother, Macaulay, who despite acting sporadically over the last 20 years, is still as popular as ever. Not that I think there is any bad blood between the two brothers. Last month when Culkin won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, Mac was all over social media excited for his younger brother.
While the older Culkin has retreated from public a little, Kieran was able to make a niche for himself in movies in TV in the 2000s when he was able to break totally free of Kit’s stranglehold and take roles that may not have gotten the bigger paychecks (like the Father of the Bride movies), but more acclaim like his performance in Igby Goes Down.
Benji and David Kaplan (Eisenberg) are cousins who decide to take a trip through Poland to honor their late Jewish grandmother. Benji claims he was more attached to his grandmother than David, who behaves the same neurotic Eisenberg way as always. It’s not really a good story mainly because we’ve seen it all before.
They keep having difficulties that most people would never have like missing train stops because someone was asleep or Benji has outbursts that connect him more to the tour group they’re with. In actuality, Benji’s behavior would probably cause a wedge. Yet there is some truth and rationale to the fact that Benji is upset everyone is gleeful about visiting the site of concentration camps.
These are not tourist sites. Eisenberg seems to be touching on something here but he isn’t really to go all in. You hear stories about how those who climb Mount Everest use the dead bodies of other tourists as a form of direction. It’s maddening. I went to see The Alamo in 2014 and aside from getting a nice parking spot out front, I was more amused by the koi fish canal they had around the place. It seemed to be more fascinating. Even Pee-wee Herman lied to us about the size of it.
Also, you’re walking on the grounds where a lot of people died in battle. I think about the scene in the Lonesome Dove miniseries where Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones ride pass The Alamo without even looking at it. The building is just there. Even Alcatraz Prison is now a big tourist attraction.
Sadly, both David and Benji are grieving the loss of their grandmother in two different ways they don’t exactly understand. It feels that Benji was kind of the weird one in the family who seemed more attached to his grandmother than David, who just does the entire Eisenberg thing. Even at an hour and a half, the movie seems too long as it runs out of steam.
Culkin deserves his Oscar mainly because he’s the only good thing in it. Seeing Jennifer Grey as one of the members of the tour guide is a nice touch. Yet, I feel the other tourists are too one-dimensional. When Johnny Depp was nominated for an Oscar for The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, one of my good friends said it shows how an actor can make a wonderful performance in an otherwise bad movie.
Benji is on the cusp of being middle-aged but he has now he’s realized he has nothing. At the end of the movie, he’s sitting at the airport terminal watching people thinking of how they’re living better lives than him. Culkin has already won an Emmy for his role on the TV show Succession. He’s shown there’s more to him than the nerdy Fuller who “wets the bed” in the Home Alone movies.
As for Eisneberg, one of his better performances was as a sasquatch in Sasquatch Sunset, mostly because he didn’t speak. That and his performance as a teen in The Village standing with his back toward the woods showing off false bravery and then walking with his friends as if he is a badass for doing so are his highlights. But like Michael Cera, he seems to be milking it all for what it’s worth.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 