Big gain with ‘Pain’: Sublime cast, sharp characters, wit, sentiment blend in emotionally honest relationship study

“A Real Pain” — 3.5 stars

Writer/director/actor Jesse Eisenberg has handcrafted a wonderful gem of a movie wisely titled “A Real Pain.”

This compact 89-minute relationship study works with an almost nonexistent plot, and with sharply drawn, realistic characters brought to life by a sublime cast. And it never quite goes where you think it will.

Eisenberg plays David, a slightly tightly wound, successful New York digital advertising salesman with a regular nuclear family — an attractive wife and cute little son.

David has inherited some money from his late grandmother, who survived internment at a Nazi concentration camp, came to the U.S. and made a new life for herself.

Having promised to one day visit his grandmother’s home in Poland, David invites his cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin) to go with him on a guided tour of the country, with stops at key locations, including Warsaw, Lublin and the Majdanek concentration camp.

Benji and David used to be quite close, but since Benji left New York, have fallen off each other’s social radar.

They are not peas from the same behavioral pod.

Benji has no job, no significant other, no ambitions, possesses no filter and appears to be immune to embarrassment.

He has something to say at any given moment, and his smart, blunt and challenging commentary hits people with shifting proportions of amusement and shock.

Their tour has been marketed primarily to American Jews, and their effete British guide, a history expert name James (Will Sharpe), admits to being obsessed with the Jewish experience, even though he’s not Jewish.

Benji and David join a small group of tourists, among them an elderly couple named Diane and Mark (Liza Sadovy and Daniel Oreskes), a Rwandan named Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan) who has converted to Judaism, and an adventuresome recent divorcee named Marcia (a still magnetic Jennifer Grey).

These strangers interact with the moody Benji in remarkable, unpredictable ways. Such as the time he persuades everyone to join him in striking comical combat poses in front of statues commemorating the Warsaw Uprising.

Or the time Benji launches into an emo tirade about the ethics of Jews traveling in a first-class train car with plentiful food and booze, even though their ancestors would have been herded into cars way in back.

That one doesn’t go over so well.

“People just can’t walk around being happy all the time!” Benji blurts, his raw honesty not tempered by social protocol.

Benji is, of course, a real pain, but not only the pain referred to in the title.

Eisenberg’s little gem reflects the pain of loss, of disappointment, even something mainstream movies prefer to avoid — powerlessness.

David so obviously wants to help Benji get his life together, to find a good job, meet the right woman and, you know, be normal.

Most movies would have opted for the cliched, artificially happy transformation.

But most of us probably know a Benji or two, people incapable of or simply not interested in going with the flow of social and cultural conventions.

It speaks volumes for Eisenberg to give the juiciest character to Culkin and take the straight man role for himself. Eisenberg never succumbs to nerdy excess. Culkin never goes for cheap sentiment.

Even Grey’s supporting character comes off refreshingly authentic, and thankfully does not conform to romantic expectations (although Eisenberg does eventually put Jennifer in the corner.)

I found the movie’s piano score — mostly classical compositions by Chopin, well-executed by Israeli-Canadian pianist Tzvi Erez — to be spiritually uplifting and complementary in many scenes, but a bit overbearing and intrusive in later ones.

That might be a quibbling criticism in a movie confirming Eisenberg (whose directorial debut was “When You Finish Saving the World”) as a first-rate storyteller able to juggle wit, humor, sentiment and unobtrusive exposition with aplomb.

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Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey

Directed by: Jesse Eisenberg

Other: A Searchlight Pictures theatrical release. Rated R for drug use, language. 89 minutes