A Real Pain

Jesse Eisenberg's second film as director is a comedy-drama about two misfit cousins who go on a guided tour of the Majdanek concentration camp.

Eisenberg plays a bound perfectionist and, as always, does so with nuanced accuracy, but the film's brightest star is Kieran Culkin (“Succession”) as an irritating but lovable dynamo. A dialogue-driven film, which both actors handle masterfully, about inherited trauma, it manages to be funny despite both theme and location suggesting otherwise.