Applauding Jesse Eisenberg for Not Forgetting

A New Movie: A Real Pain

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In 2015, I went to a Holocaust remembrance event. The keynote speaker was Efraim Zuroff who calls himself the “Last Nazi Hunter.” At that point, he had thirty-five years of experience in that profession and explained his long pursuit of Nazi criminals by telling a story about his mentor, Simon Wiesenthal.

Prior to the war, Wiesenthal had been an architect. A friend asked him why he did not go back to that profession after the war, why he became a Nazi hunter instead. Wiesenthal replied, “When we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us, ‘What have you done?’ You will say, ‘I became a jeweler.’ Another will say, ‘I have smuggled coffee and American cigarettes.’ Another will say, ‘I built houses.’ But I will say, ‘I didn’t forget you.’”

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It appears that actor, writer, director Jesse Eisenberg is likewise not willing to forget those who died in the Holocaust as evidenced by his latest movie – and previous work. But let’s start with his new film, A Real Pain. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2024, and had a limited theatrical release in the United States on November 1, 2024.

In spite of the fact that it is Holocaust related, it is labeled a comedy/drama. It tells the story of two forty-ish-year-old men who are on a road trip together. They are first cousins and have always been close friends as well, but their adult life experiences make them more separate than either really wants to be.

Jesse Eisenberg plays the part of David Kaplan, a fully launched adult who is a pragmatic husband and father, and who handles life in part with anti-anxiety drugs. Kieran Culkin plays his cousin Benji, a guy who at best has not yet grown up, but is maybe an unsettled drifter due to emotional problems. When their Grandma Dory passes away, it is a good reason for them to travel together to Poland to find the home in which she lived before WWII.

Thus the two join a tour group for a Jewish-heritage trip to Poland. Four other travelers are in the group plus a tour guide. Free-spirited Benji has no filter on his words, actions, or emotions. In turn he endears himself to all the group members and then alienates them, only to repeat the process. Buttoned up David is equal parts embarrassed by Benji and envious of him as the life of the party.

As part of the tour, the group visits the concentration/extermination camp, Majdanek, and two miles away, the city of Lublin. It is ever so casually mentioned how life went on as usual in Lublin as the atrocities occurred near-by, right there in the background of life.

Indeed, what’s in the background of life becomes a central issue of the movie. And for David, his family legacy of the Holocaust is the answer. He tells us “a thousand miracles for survival” produced him and Benji. Beyond wondering why his family had the good fortune to still exist, he also tries to reconcile the petty grievances he has with Benji against the backdrop of the Holocaust.

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In an interview with NJ.com – True Jersey, Jesse Eisenberg talks about the inherited trauma and generational guilt that is ever present in his life. His paternal grandfather was racked with guilt that he survived while all of his cousins, aunts, and uncles had been murdered.

The interview shares other interesting tidbits.

• The genesis of this movie was a promise Jesse Eisenberg made to his great-aunt Doris that he would someday visit the house she grew up in near Lublin. She left it in 1939 and he visited it for the first time in 2008, photographing it for her. Audience members get to see the home in the movie.
• In 2013, moved by that first visit to his Polish homeland, Jesse Eisenberg wrote an off-Broadway play set there. It is called The Revisionist. He starred in it with Vanessa Redgrave, who played his cousin, a Holocaust survivor.
• It took eight months to get permission to film at Majdanek, but ultimately it was granted because the film’s intention aligned with the mission statement of the Museum, to promote historical education and to preserve the memory of the concentration camp and the death camps.
• Jesse Eisenberg is in the process of becoming a Polish citizen as he tries to reconnect with the country that was home to his family for so long.

Clearly, Jesse Eisenberg has not forgotten those who died in the Holocaust, nor will he be forgetting them in the future. He’s even making sure a multitude of people – all of his fans – remember. I applaud him for this, especially in this day of Holocaust deniers.

I also applaud and recommend the movie. A comedy/drama about the Holocaust?! That’s as crazy as many of Benji’s antics in the film. Trust me, he’s A Real Pain to David…as David is to him. But both of them have a bigger problem to manage in their lives, their family legacy of the Holocaust, which is indeed A Real Pain.

As a sweet note among all this heartache, the movie soundtrack throughout features the piano pieces of Frederic Chopin as Jesse Eisenberg takes another minute to honor the Polish composer, another part of his heritage.

Nope! There’s no forgetting here.

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