Movie history is littered with actors who’ve turned themselves into directors, though the shape of that transition seems to have changed over the years. The Redfords and Eastwoods of the world have always shown a soft spot for their initial vocation, steering winning performances with the aid of dramatically sticky scripts. Denzel Washington, George Clooney, and Brandley Cooper are a few recent examples who’ve followed suit, but the present crop of thespians-turned-auteurs has been increasingly intent on showing off their technical skills. Whether it’s the galaxy brain construction behind the works of Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele, or the dazzling visuals of Dev Patel and Zoë Kravitz’s 2024 releases, the performers we’re used to seeing in front of the camera are bent on frazzling our senses from behind it. Jesse Eisenberg represents a return to the old way of doing things, with his sophomore outing, A Real Pain, existing as both an actorly showcase and an argument in favor of nimble, sturdy screenplays. We like to complain that they don’t make ‘em like they used to, an uninterrogated wish that’s put squarely under the microscope during Pain’s modest time on the screen.

Written within the confines of a fable rather than a normal cinematic feature, Eisenberg’s latest has more in common with Of Mice and Men than anything playing in the auditorium down the hall. The George here is David (Eisenberg), a neurotic family man who invites his estranged cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin) on a guided tour of Poland to visit the childhood sights of their late grandmother. But Benji is no Lenny; a free-wheeling motor mouth with both charm and hurt bursting from the seams, the ostensible second fiddle is ever-intent on drawing the spotlight in his direction, making for an odd couple that can only coexist for so long before their interpersonal brass tax arrives, requiring payment.

A character study that neglects to adorn the proceedings with the bells and whistles to which we’ve become accustomed, A Real Pain proudly wears its throwback bonafides on its sleeve. There’s hardly a plot to be found, the movie instead honing in on a fractured relationship and the many character revelations that are made possible by stripping things down to the studs. While the movie makes handsome use of its unique locations, cinematographer Michal Dymek’s work is never showy, capturing daily life, human interactions, and local architecture as a fly on the wall, content to simply observe. This pseudo-vérité edict runs the risk of causing eyelids to slowly droop, but shares an ethos with the project writ large, coalescing into something a tad stayed, but never less than true.

The majority of credit for the film’s sense of naked honesty goes to Eisenberg’s pen, which avoids broadness and fallacy like the plague. We’re left to wonder after David’s homelife, and, more potently, about the origin of Benji’s trauma, but the details are only present in fits and starts, just as they would be in the situation that the movie depicts. Staying exclusively in the moment aids in the movie’s staying power, with many a word left unsaid and topic unexplored, though it also has the unintended consequence of feeling a little too tidy to touch. Eisenberg’s fealty to realism is admirable, but there’s a perfectionism here that threatens to cut it out at the knees, vacuum sealing the whole enterprise as its creator searches for one perfect note after another. It’s certainly not how Benji would handle things.

Before decrying Culkin for largely recycling his Succession performance, it’s worth considering how close we were to losing sight of him. Emerging from the shadow of his messianic older brother, Keiren’s film acting largely stalled out after his debut adult performance in Igby Goes Down, and it’s not hard to see why. There are only so many parts for his nervy, itchy, verbose performance style, which is what made Roman Roy such a singular creation. We should be so lucky to spend more time with our favorite failson; his queasy-making gravitational pull is wholly singular, and while one gets the feeling that he could do it in his sleep, the fact that no one else can shouldn’t go unnoticed. He blows Eisenberg off the screen, but that’s by design. The director is content with playing the straight man, and watching a generational talent cook.

Benji is the pain to which the film’s title refers, or at least he’s one of them. Others include longing for one’s family, dissociation from heritage, and the lingering tragedy of the Holocaust. A Real Pain is less satisfied with implication on the last matter, visiting many sights of past horrors and elaborating on devastating events through the voice of a gentile tour guide (Will Sharpe). David and Benji are more closely associated, growing up in Jewish households with their survivor grandmother as a revered figure. While touring these sights has an undoubted effect on their outlooks and attempts toward reconciliation, our protagonists have little to say on the subject, preferring to spend their discussions relitigating their shared history. It’s a curious choice, one too glaring to be unintentional, but it diminishes our focus on the atrocities we’re otherwise meant to contemplate, to the point where a late-movie stop at the sight of a concentration camp feels like making up for lost time.

It doesn’t help that it immediately recalls a similar scene that delivered a startling, sombering blow at the end of last year’s The Zone of Interest, but Eisenberg is no Jonathan Glazer, nor does he want to be. With a much-discussed love of playwriting that supersedes his passion for the big screen, he seems destined to make modest character studies like this one, minutely scaled to the point of playing more like TV than film. The same could be said of The Holdovers or Trains, Planes, and Automobiles, two holiday travelog flicks with which A Real Pain shares some DNA, from the wounded hearts and familial anxieties, to the fact that they all seem destined for perpetual rewatches. It’s not quite on the level of those two classics, partially because of the spare runtime that could stand to be longer and more fully developed, another sign of its humble aims. It’s small but refined, a tiny stone chiseled into a diamond almost too small to see. Here’s hoping he chooses a bigger rock next time.