‘A Real Pain’ review: Jesse Eisenberg directs a moving road trip film

“This will be a tour about pain,” cautions James, the earnest British guide shepherding a group of American Jews on a tour of Poland. The small group includes David and Benji, two cousins from New York on a visit to Poland to honour their recently deceased grandmother Dori, a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust. Best known for this starring role as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, Jesse Eisenberg writes, directs and stars in this holocaust comedy playing David, who like Eisenberg, suffers from OCD and anxiety disorder. In an interview, Eisenberg said he had written a story about cousins on a trip to Mongolia, but decided to relocate it to Poland when he saw an Benji and David’s different personalities become immediately apparent as they navigate the airport and the long flight. At one point, David summarises Benji’s behaviour saying, “You light up a room and then you shit on everything inside of it.” At times the film feels like a postcard for ‘Visit Poland’, yet the journey is triggering and leads to meltdowns and deeper conversations between David and Benji, who eventually peel away from the group to make a private visit to their grandmother’s birth place.