Diractors is a new series in which Hassle writer Jack Draper examines films, new and old, whose directors are better known for their work in front of the camera.
Welcome, officially, to Diractors, a closer look into the films directed by actors! For me, a Diractors movie can elevate an actor’s career to the next gear (see Warren Beatty’s Reds) it might also elicit a shrug and a years-later “X actor directed that??” (as in Josh Radnor’s Liberal Arts). How does an actor avoid accusations of self-indulgence when directing themselves? No matter the quality or reception at the time, the phenomenon of actors turned directors is begging to be psychoanalyzed, especially when it comes to a point in an actor’s career when we’ve gotten to know their personality so well. All the while, there are actors or comedians who don’t reach household name status, yet what we know them for is all just a roundabout way to get to the director’s chair.
All of this is to say, I haven’t exactly been monitoring Jesse Eisenberg’s directing career under a microscope, but I really fell in love with A Real Pain. After hearing from pretty much everyone that When You Finish Saving The World was extremely mid, A Real Pain stands tall as one of the most genuine dramedies of the year in a year full emotional vulnerability. Instead of a subversion of what we’ve come to know them as or an adaptation nobody else will make, Eisenberg smartly embraces both who he and Kieran Culkin have been known as on screen. What we’ve come to know and love from Eisenberg, and what he pulls from Culkin, only reveals a generational trauma masked behind the neurosis. Eisenberg is able to get at an indescribable feeling to know someone your entire life, yet still have so much curiosity how you’ve ended up so different.
I know I thought of my best friend from childhood, with the dynamic between the extremely watchable David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Culkin, in one of the best and most undeniable performances of the year). We follow them as the guys embark on a journey to Poland to visit their homeland, specifically visiting the home of their late Grandma Dory, whom Benji was particularly closer to. They haven’t seen each other in several years, and it’s clear that they have one of those friendships where you can not see each other and the energy does not skip a beat, expect maybe for David has skipped more beats than Benji. It’s a beautiful kind of chemistry, as neither of them change to fit hanging out with the other, even though David now has a family and job in online advertisements and Benji is still directionless. Eisenberg’s characterization of Benji is so well measured here, as he isn’t really a self-destructive guy but rather someone who needs some fixing.
A Real Pain shows us Eisenberg’s writing and directing at its most thoughtful. A movie that deserves to be made by him while also shifting his directing career into something more precise. Culkin gives such an internal performance as with someone who keeps circling change but stuggles to identify it, yet David (but powerfully Eisenberg) articulates his insecurities with ease. Its moments of his articulation where Eisenberg’s performance can be overlooked and for him to gift Culkin with performing Benji makes this sophomore effort all the better.
A Real Pain
2024
dir. Jesse Eisenberg
90min.
Opens Friday, 11/15 @ Coolidge Corner Theatre, Somerville Theatre, and theaters everywhere
