REVIEW. "A Real Pain is 1000 Miracles of Pure Joy...and Sadness."

Woody Allen lives! Well, sort of.

Just when I thought Allen's quintessentially morose, if arguably loveable, neurotic putz might fade into movie oblivion, writer/director/actor Jesse Eisenberg, himself a veteran of two Allen movies - To Rome With Love and Cafe Society - sweeps in and restores my faith in the enduring appeal of an enlightened schmuck, though Eisenberg is probably more of a mensch.

I must admit that, since the #MeToo movement kicked into full steam a few years ago, I feared Allen's artistry and cinematic genius would become another victim of cancel culture when former partner Mia Farrow and then their adopted daughter Dylan, repeatedly accused him of child abuse. After multiple investigations and lots of ugly press, no charges were filed against Allen, who has maintained his innocence for going on three decades. Nonetheless, perception toward and judgment about Allen's unconventional storylines and personal behavior persist, and his once brilliant career is now often overshadowed by tabloid skepticism. I have friends and colleagues that are appalled I would even consider watching a Woody Allen movie. Ugh. But that's probably a topic for a separate blog post.

The good news is that New York Jewish neurosis is alive and well, though clearly re-imagined by Eisenberg in his new film, A Real Pain: the story of two cousins - David and Benji (Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) - born on the same day, who reunite for a trip to Poland to visit the childhood home of their paternal grandmother, who - because of "a thousand miracles" - was a Holocaust survivor. David, married with a beautiful wife and child (he repeatedly plays a video of his son reciting statistics about the height of the Empire State Building), designs online pop-up adds and takes medication to control his OCD. Benji, on the other hand, is a free-spirit, himself a survivor of a recent suicide attempt (a seemingly dramatic reaction to his grandmother's death), unfiltered in both language and behavior and completely comfortable telling his cousin how much he disdains David's seemingly conventional life.

Together this familial odd couple embark on a week's journey to Poland: a week-long Holocaust tour that comes complete with a visit to the Majdanek concentration camp (including lunch). The other travelers are a unique, if somewhat tortured group: the gentile British tour guide James (Will Sharpe) who seems aloof from the horrific historical information he shares throughout the tour, a divorcee named Marcia (jennifer Grey) recently relocated from LA to New York, looking to reconnect with her past (her mother was a survivor of the concentration camps), a Jewish couple - Diane and Mark - from Shaker Heights, OH (Liza Sadovy and Daniel Oreskes), self-described as "Mayflower Jews" who are hoping the trip will validate their personal detachment from their relatives' suffering during WWII, and Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan), a convert to Judaism after surviving the 2022 Nigerian genocide. Though each has a slightly different reason to embark on this journey, there is a profound sense of sadness that underscores the mood throughout their trip.

Benji jumps right in connecting to the others, striking up conversations with Marcia and Eloge, and frequently challenging James for the tour's lack of authenticity and emotion. In one scene, the group visits the Old Jewish Cemetery, and Benji insists they all leave a stone atop the gravesite of the oldest person buried there. Conversely, a stop at a Polish war memorial turns silly when Benji insists everyone (except David) strike a pose alongside the figures depicted in the statue. As David clumsily tried to capture the photo op on everyone's individual cell phone, his separation from the group - and Benji - is obvious. Later, at dinner, David admits that having a relationship with Benji, is a constant challenge, describing Benji as the type of person who can light up a room and then shit on everything in it. He loves his cousin, but he's also angry at Benji's indifference to social norms and jealous of his ability to bring people together.

It is this lifelong tension between the sweet and sensitive David and the irreverent iconoclast Benji that drives the story, ultimately revealing the kinds of existential questions Woody Allen has been posing for decades: Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? How do I connect with other human beings? Can I function in a world that offers little hope and no promise of happiness? The movie doesn't offer easy answers, but instead, focuses on the internal struggles each character faces without passing judgment or handing out simplistic platitudes about human nature.

Eisenberg, himself (like David) managing real-life diagnoses of both OCD and ADHD, examines the delicate ties that bind and separate families, specifically, Jewish families, now two or three generations removed from the Holocaust. He uses David and Benji's common family connection against their opposite personalities to create situations that are layered with both comedic subtleties and dramatic depth. When the two finally visit their grandmother's house, a woman they both admired and the one Benji claims to have been his favorite person, the only one who could keep him disciplined, the one word they agree describes her childhood home is "unremarkable."

A disappointment? Perhaps, or maybe the realization that what makes individuals special is not the physical places they inhabit but the meaning they bring to others' lives. When they return to New York, David invites Benji to come home with him. Benji is tempted, but says he's going to stay at the airport a bit longer because he feels at home there. It is here, in the camera's last shot and final frame, that we see in close-up, the fear, contentment and uncertainty in Benji's face. It is a penetratingly remarkable image, one that I will not soon forget, and Culkin captures all of Benji's being in that moment.

Which is meant to say that A Real Pain is a marvel of a movie. Similar to the thousand miracles David and Benji's grandmother claims made her a Holocaust survivor, Eisenberg has crafted a masterful, thoughtful, and beautiful story filled with memories, fear, resentment and hope, one that gives the audience something to think about long after the credits role. I certainly did. It's been almost a week since I saw A Real Pain, and I've thought about many aspects of Eisenberg's 90-minute film many times since then. For one thing, he is efficient in his use of time to develop rich characters and explore cultural angst. There's more here to contemplate in an hour-and-a-half than Scorsese delivered in last year's three-and-a-half-hour marathon, Killers of the Flower Moon in terms of historical context, grief, loss, and personal introspection. The script is clever, thoughtful, alternating wit with pathos, humor with somber realization. I expect to see A Real Pain nominated in Oscar's Original Screenplay category.

And then there is the acting. Eisenberg, previously nominated for his star-making turn as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2005's The Social Network, may not make Oscars' final five, but he certainly delivers a nuanced performance as David, an earnest, if conflicted Jew, struggling to come to terms with his cousin's irreverent behavior (or mental illness?), his grandmother's death, and discovering his family history. It's not unlike Eisenberg's own journey: born in New York City, Eisenberg grew up in New Jersey in a secular Jewish community. His ancestry can be traced back to Poland and Ukraine. Earlier this year, he applied for dual citizenship to Poland, where he has recently spent time as a way of reconnecting with his roots. His almost exclusive use of Chopin's piano concertos, throughout the film solidifies his Polish connection and secures the film's solemn Holocaust remembrance.

Eisenberg has been open about his own struggles with OCD and anxiety disorder, which has both opened up creative venues of expression and social challenges. His David exhibits some of the those same traits and, in this way, plays against Woody Allen's glib, searching schmuck, making off-hand comments about being a Jew and coming to terms with his place in the world. Eisenberg seems to have assimilated into society, though not without lingering questions about his heritage or his ability to understand the complexities of being a Jew in the 21st century.

Arguably, though, the character that most clearly exhibits the contradictory nature of being a Jew in 21st century America, is Kieran Culkin's Benji, a sort of Wandering Jew cursed to walk the earth waiting for redemption, or something. Culkin's performance is a revelation of its own: the small details with how his Benji navigates the world, alternating between being engaging and off-putting, the relative you kind of love but are embarrassed to be around. In a sense, Benji personifies the enigma of Holocaust remembrance: he is simultaneously attached to his grandmother's memory and completely ignorant of its importance.

Eisenberg has spoken about working with Culkin who, in his own way, resembled Benji during filming: no matter what shot Eisenberg had lined up, Culkin would go off on a tangent of his own, changing the designed order of things and creating his own vibrant universe from which the movie flows. It is a courageous, fearless performance, one that should be recognized during the upcoming awards season.

A Real Pain got me thinking about a lot of things, one of which is the relationships between cousins. My husband grew up on the Jersey Shore and has a lifelong relationship with a cousin one month younger than he. Their mothers were sisters. Paul and Jim have retained a relationship that spans eight decades. I, on the other hand, have no cousins my own age. An only child, born late in life to my parents, I was the youngest among my first cousins, those closest in age were five years older and male, meaning I was either ignored or made fun of growing up. I recall one of them telling me I'd never amount to anything and another constantly pulling my nose and laughing that mine was too small. Though I have cordial relationships with most now, I can't say that I'm really close to any of them, at least not in the way David and Benji are. But David and Benji's relationship comes at a price, on that is both rewarding and devastating. The sadness that embraces them is both a product of their family's pain and their individual understanding of it.

A Real Pain will not be a box office blockbuster, but it is a film worth seeing...and seeing again. If you don't catch it in a theater, it's likely to find its way to streaming before year's end, so don't miss it. Eisenberg has taken long-expressed notions about the psychological impact of Holocaust survivors on their families to a new, very personal, post-modern tale, utilizing themes of Jewish remembrance to contemplate broader issues about life, relationships, and the things that challenge us all. It is a funny, heart-breaking and moving film.

Or, as Woody Allen once quipped, "Life is full of misery, loneliness and suffering... and it's all over much too soon."