With the Golden Globe nominations in place, the 2025 awards season has officially begun. It includes the first list of favorite films that will be among the winners in various categories in the coming months. real painJesse Eisenberg’s directorial debutSocial network) one of them. The journey of David (Eisenberg himself, who also wrote the script) and his cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin, from Continuity), in search of the history of his Jewish family, is a moving drama. But it’s also a combination of a sincere vision of generational grief and an exploration of identity. This is through cultural heritage.
The film avoids sentimentality and clichés in such premises, favoring a melancholic and worldly point of view. Both David and Benji travel to Poland in search of answers about their maternal grandmother, a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust. But also to try to gain a deeper understanding of how this experience affected his entire family. In this way, the idea of heritage travel is viewed from a perspective that is both hilarious and sometimes ironic. Especially when both characters realize they need to think about their sense of belonging. Also in what’s going on when family anecdotes turn into a more bitter story.
The combination of all of the above makes the film one of the most original and moving offerings of awards season. Particularly because Kieran Culkin’s performance transforms his character into a man in full spiritual development. Something that allows the performer to explore emotional nuances and contradictions from a new and friendly perspective. But this is not the only bright moment of one of the most interesting films of the year. We leave you three reasons to watch real pain. From the script’s sincerity in its depiction of grief and pain to its curious use of dark humor. The combination that makes the production one of the big surprises in the film world in recent months.
An original approach to a complex topic
real pain analyzes the topic of family inheritance based on an unusual element. This is when you question how the memories, traumas and disappointments of previous generations affect the family. It’s not a twist that hasn’t been touched upon in film before, but the film shows it through a journey of growth. David and Benji decide to try to better understand the legacy they inherited during their visit to Poland. A solution that, although simple, This will open the door to a spiritual journey that no one expected.
Once in Europe, both will begin to try to understand how their grandmother was able to survive extermination by the Nazis. A topic that both characters delve into from a certain emotional and intellectual distance. After all, family experiences are part of what is being told and the context in which they grew up. But in Poland, and especially when visiting the house where his grandmother grew up, everything changes and becomes tangible. Much more, a series of almost miraculous events who allowed their relative to escape despite everything being against him.
The film does not resort to magical, philosophical or exaggerated ideas to show how David and Benji come to understand the Jewish diaspora from a different perspective. And not melodrama. Before then, he shows his characters fallible and full of questions, and in the unexpected process of growing up. An honest look at pain and forgiveness is very rare. At the same time, it allows the script to add historical context and the evolution of concepts such as ethics. What are the results? is of significant interest for a full understanding of the experiences of its main characters.
True story as background
real pain It follows the characters’ journey from Warsaw, a rural Polish village, to the Majdanek concentration camp. Therefore, the history of each of these places is of significant interest for understanding the spiritual evolution of both. But the script avoids giving lessons on the topic or immediately showing a moral opinion about the tragedy. Before this, the brutal context of what was happening in the village and in Poland as a whole, This helps to understand the importance of memory and commemoration.
Of particular interest in the film is the combination of the concept of family heritage with respect for personal roots and even identity. Both David and Benji are Jews who are familiar with the pain and suffering on a terrible scale that caused the Nazi Holocaust. But their search in Poland leads them to understand the value, spiritual and moral strength of their grandmother. One way or another, this interpretation of things turns the entire trip into a personal search for traces of his family. This, understanding genocide through an exceptional witness who, moreover, This has been a part of his life since childhood.
This may seem like a minor detail, but this perspective is disturbing real pain This is just another story about a man who survived World War II. Instead, the director and screenwriter make it an intimate experience of a family searching for their origins and their place among an event of paramount importance for understanding the twentieth century.
Good use of humor
Although real pain This is not a comedy; there is a lot of dark humor in the plot. Especially in how Benji tries to understand his Jewish identity. The script places the character – a man at the center of a conflict over the ethical legacy he has inherited – at the center of a series of existential questions. In particular, when the question arises to what extent the experience of the Jewish Diaspora They influenced you or gave you a different perspective on your experience.
Therefore, humor becomes a way to think intimately about painful or sensitive topics. real pain This is not a historical film or an ethical epic. Above all, there is more to it than that: the way David, and especially Benji, acknowledges that what his grandmother experienced is also part of his life. So, Kieran Culkin sparks Benji’s curiosity, which leads him to ask uncomfortable questions. At the same time, question the general idea of suffering.
In the end, real pain It focuses less on what happened in the past and more on how it affected the future. Including its characters, both grandchildren of a survivor who had to face fear, pain and, ultimately, a precarious need to find peace. A premise that the film explores with particular emotional sensitivity and that could make her one of the biggest winners in the coming months.
Source: Hiper Textual
