With a Golden Globe already pocketed, Jesse Eisenberg’s beautifully bittersweet and sharply funny comedy-drama A Real Pain is on an inspiring journey from Sundance breakout to Academy Awards favourite.
What is A Real Pain about?
The film, a deeply personal one for Eisenberg and inspired by the actor-writer-director’s own family history, is an odyssey story too. It follows two semi-estranged cousins, the anxious, buttoned-up David (Eisenberg) and the charismatic, frank and utterly lost Benji (Kieran Culkin), on a tour of Poland’s Jewish history led by Will Sharpe’s mild-mannered English guide. Joints are smoked, landmarks are visited, and old family tensions are never too far away as the pair make their way across the country, heading ultimately for their late grandmother’s old hometown and a poignant tribute. Polish composer Frederic Chopin provides the road-trip playlist of 19th century bangers.
Making the film was a case of life imitating art imitating life, with cast and crew travelling across Poland to film at all locations featured in the story. From Warsaw to the medieval town of Lublin in the country’s southeast, via some fraught rail travel, A Real Pain takes audiences on a journey of Poland’s past and present, filtered through the prism of the Jewish experience. Almost uniquely for a dramatised story, Eisenberg was given permission to film in a former concentration camp – Majdanek on the outskirts of Lublin – for the film’s unsentimental but deeply moving centerpiece.
Is the movie A Real Pain all filmed in Poland?
Yes, barring two bookending scenes at a New York airport, the entire movie was filmed in the country. Eisenberg took inspiration from films like Y Tu Mamá También to ‘create a road movie that’s also beautiful, that shows Poland in a really beautiful light, but mixes the kind of elements of horror and history’. Here’s where to go to follow in Benji and David’s footsteps.
Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, Warsaw
The group’s tour begins at Warsaw’s memorial to the Jewish fighters who rose up against the Nazis in 1943. Tour guide James describes it as ‘a monument that celebrates the Jewish heroes that fought back against the Nazis’, contextualising its place in the group’s itinerary ahead of a visit to Majdanek concentration camp. ‘I think it’s important to dispel the myth that these were people who were led like lambs to the slaughter,’ he explains. Designed by Polish-Jewish sculptor Nathan Rapoport, the 11-metre-tall statue was unveiled in 1948. Poetically, it was made from materials originally earmarked for Nazi monuments.
Grzybów Square, Warsaw
From the uprising memorial, the group walks across the city, taking in the tree-lined Grzybów Square (or ‘Plac Grzybowski’). A picturesque, triangular green space, it was once part of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Warsaw Uprising Monument
The group’s tour takes in Warsaw’s Krasiński Square and this massive monument to the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis. To David’s obvious discomfort, Benji soon has fellow tourists Marcia (Jennifer Grey), Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan), Diane (Liza Sadovy) and Mark (Daniel Oreskes), posing as resistance fighters on the memorial – even coaxing the reluctant James to join in. The bronze artwork commemorates the resistance fighters who took on the Nazis over 63 days in the summer of 1944. Head across town to the Warsaw Rising Museum to get the full story of those heroic deeds.
Grodzka Gate, Lublin
After a dramatic train journey, David and Benji catch up with their fellow travellers for the Lublin leg of their tour. James leads the group on a walk of the city’s Jewish past, introducing them to Lublin’s medieval castle and this gateway, aka the Jewish Gate, to the town’s old Jewish quarter.
Old Jewish Cemetery, Lublin
A tense exchange between Benji and James takes place in the ancient Old Jewish Cemetery on a Lublin hillside. As James places the burial ground in its historical context, Benji asks his chastened tour guide to ease up on the ‘factoids’. Instead, James suggests following the Jewish tradition of leaving a stone on the ‘matzevah’ of Talmudist Jakub Kopelman, the oldest grave in Poland.
Majdanek concentration camp, Lublin
Eisenberg’s idea of filming within the sombre surrounds of a concentration camp initially met with discouragement, but his screenplay’s sensitive, reverential treatment of the location saw permission granted. ‘They said: “Oh, it’s contemporary, and it shows Majdanek the way it is now,”’ he explains. ’[The scene] takes place in Majdanek, which no Holocaust movie does because no one knows about it. But mine is set there because that’s where my family is from.’
‘In the time in between set-ups, people were just very quiet,’ remembers Culkin of the shoot. All of the practicalities of filmmaking – lighting, blocking, etc – were conducted with ‘the utmost reverence and sanctity for what we were doing,’ recalls Eisenberg.
For visitors aged 14 and over, the State Museum at Majdanek offers two-and-a-half-hour tours of the camp.
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Frederic Chopin’s house
It’s not a physical location in the film, and doesn’t feature on David and Benji’s tour, but the home of Poland’s greatest composer was a key influence. Years before writing A Real Pain, Eisenberg had visited Chopin’s house on a trip to Poland and he returned to the musician’s work to provide the film’s score. ‘It gives the movie this sophisticated “removed” tone that I just found very helpful,’ he says. ‘When we started editing the movie and were putting these Chopin pieces in the places that they belonged, the editor and I just turned to each other and said, “This is the tone of the movie.”’
Photography courtesy of the Polish National Tourist Office.
A Real Pain is in UK and Ireland cinemas Jan 8. Streaming on Hulu in the US Jan 16.
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