David and Benji Kaplan, the 40-ish cousins who make up the central duo of “A Real Pain,” are the sort of odd-couple opposites in which movies specialize. David (Jesse Eisenberg), tense and fast-talking, is the settled one; he has a wife, a toddler, a nice Brooklyn apartment and a steady tech job, yet he struggles with anxiety. Benji (a wonderfully sleepy-eyed Kieran Culkin), loose and charming, is the freewheeling one, the type who instantly makes friends with a TSA agent, with no one seeming to mind if he holds up the line. But his life is a bit stuck, and he may be rather more complicated than he initially seems. You’ve seen a lot of movies about duos like this, but Eisenberg, who wrote and directed “A Real Pain,” finds something both comedic and gently beautiful in their connection.

Most of the film takes place in Poland, where David and Benji are traveling together; with a small tour group, they’re visiting the homeland of their beloved grandmother, hoping to honor her memory. Their dynamic is quickly established: Benji is the sort who immediately and without filter blurts out the wrong thing (when a fellow tour member shares that he is a survivor of Rwandan genocide, Benji’s instant response is “Oh, snap!”), and yet he quickly becomes a favorite of the group, leaving the more reserved David on the outside looking in. It’s a pattern they’ve followed throughout their lives. “I love him and I hate him and I want to kill him and I want to be him,” David tells the group in a rare unguarded moment, envying Benji’s ability to connect. His sunny-seeming cousin eats up all the air in the room — but, as we learn over the film’s tidy 90 minutes, Benji has his own pain, and it’s just as real as David’s.

Accompanied by the delicate serenity of Chopin piano music (the composer was, like the grandmother, a native of Poland), we’re taken on a trip with David and Benji, one that examines Jewish identity, generational trauma, siblinglike rivalry and the strangeness of being in a country you don’t recognize, but that’s nonetheless partly your own. And, in a remarkable balancing act by Eisenberg, it’s also very funny. By the film’s poignant final scenes, you feel like you’ve really been somewhere, with a new appreciation of what it means to be home.

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'A REAL PAIN'

3.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for language throughout and some drug use)

Running time: 1:30

How to watch: Now in theaters

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