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The pictures charming modesty is its great virtue; its a light movie with a heavy heart.
Structured like a travelogue,A Real Painfollows two cousins on a Holocaust tour through modern-day Poland.
The manic Benji is frivolous and jokey one minute, strident and uncompromising the next.
When their tour group takes a train ride in first class, Benji revolts.
Were Jews in a fucking train car in Poland!
he yells, overcome by what he sees as the dissonance of the moment.
Characters in film are often defined in bold, clear strokes that speak to the consistency of their traits.
The more we see of Benji, the harder he becomes to pin down.
On the one hand, the man is a pure charmer.
But hes also offensive, mercurial, incapable of holding back.
Do you see what happens when you walk into a room?
Dave tells Benji at one point.
I would give anything to know what that feels like.
The truth is that Benji probably doesnt know what happens when he walks into a room.
He has no idea what others think of him, because hes too lost inside.
So, uh, what about the whole Holocaust thing?
The dynamic between Benji and Dave is about more than two estranged and very different cousins.
For the buttoned-up Dave, its not possible to worry about all the suffering in the world.
Benji doesnt have that luxury, in part because he himself is clearly suffering inside.
We would never really know what these places were from the outside, it seems.
The same goes for people.
