A Real Pain 2024

The film opens as cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji Kaplan (Kieran Culkin) meet up at an airport in New York. Benji claims to have been there for hours while David was anxious about running late. David is married to Priya (Ellora Torchia) and has a son with her, Abe (Banner Eisenberg), while Benji is carefree and single. The two are on their way to Poland for a Jewish heritage tour in honor of their late grandmother, Dory.

Upon arriving at their hotel, Benji makes an odd comment regarding David’s feet. They later meet with the rest of their tour, led by a British guide named James (Will Sharpe). There is also Marcia (Jennifer Grey), who is there by herself, along with a couple named Mark and Diane (Daniel Oreskes and Liza Sadovy), and a Rwandan refugee named Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan) who converted to Judaism. Benji asks Eloge about his background, which David fears will cause a problem, but Eloge is happy over Benji’s curiosity and shares an emotional anecdote with the group.

The group starts going around the city, where they come across a monument of Polish soldiers. While David just wants to take normal pictures, Benji manages to get the whole group to make elaborate poses that David takes a picture of. As they walk around, Benji also bonds with others like Marcia.

While riding the train, Benji gets loudly uncomfortable over the fact that they, as Jewish folks, are sitting in a train car that would have been hauling them off to concentration camps during the Holocaust. He ends up going to a different train car, with David following him so that he is not alone.

The guys get off at a stop that they realize is the wrong station, which happened because Benji didn’t want to wake David up. While David is pissed, Benji comes up with a plan to get them back with the group without having to buy new tickets. They get on a train heading in the opposite direction and move to the front train car (which happens to be first class) while managing to avoid detection from the conductor. They manage to reunite with the group, who had their bags waiting for them.

The group then arrives at a cemetery, where James is delivering his facts on the people buried there. Benji makes another big scene where he criticizes James for talking about the deceased as though they are just statistics, which makes David uncomfortable. Benji then gets everyone to place a stone on the grave of a random man as a show of respect to his memory.

Everybody stops at a restaurant for the evening. Benji is slightly drunk and making inappropriate comments before belching loudly and saying he has to pee. After he excuses himself, David apologizes to everybody for Benji’s behavior. Some like Marcia and Diane are sympathetic, as they know Benji is grieving the loss of Grandma Dory. David explains that they used to be much closer, but six months earlier, Benji attempted suicide by overdosing. The group then overhears the piano in the restaurant playing, before realizing that Benji is the one playing it.

The next day, the group goes to visit the site of a former concentration camp. While everyone has an emotional reaction to being there, Benji can barely contain himself next to David. James privately tells Benji that he managed to influence the way James conducted his tour and thanks him for doing so.

Later that night, after parting ways with the group, David and Benji sneak into a Hotel Victoria to go to the rooftop to smoke one last joint from weed that Benji mailed himself to the hotel. While they are initially friendly, the conversation turns into an argument when Benji suggests that he won’t hear from David for a long time after the trip is done. Benji says that David used to feel and cry more than he does now, which David says would feel terrible to do all the time. David, in turn, goes off on Benji for his suicide attempt and expresses anger at Benji for worrying the family like he did.

The following morning, just before they go home, David and Benji stop at Dory’s old home. Benji shares a story with David about how their grandmother slapped him across the face because he was later to meet her for dinner one night since he was getting stoned. Benji says it was the best thing that ever happened to him. The two leave stones on the porch as a tribute, but they are noticed by an elderly neighbor and his adult son. The son translates for his father and learns from the cousins what their purpose for their visit is. While they say that it’s a sweet gesture, they say it’s a bad idea to leave the stones because another old woman lives in the house and could trip on them, so David and Benji remove the stones before leaving.

The guys return to New York. As they are leaving the airport, David invites Benji to his home for dinner, but Benji declines, as he says that you meet the craziest people at the airport. David slaps him across the face like Dory did, hoping it might influence Benji as well, but Benji just laughs it off before they share a long hug.

David returns home to Priya and Abe greeting him happily, while Benji sits at the airport alone once again.