If you’re curious about the movie that lead to Kieran Culkin vowing to impregnate his wife at the 2025 Oscars on Sunday night, I have good news: A Real Pain is currently streaming on Hulu.
Written, directed, and produced by Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain first premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, and went on to be nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor (Culkin) and Best Original Screenplay. As anyone who saw that speech knows, Culkin took home the Oscar, beating his Succession co-star Jeremy Strong.
A Real Pain is a light drama that tells the story of two very different cousins (played by Eisenberg and Culkin) who take a tour of Poland in honor of their late grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. Much of the character motivations are left up to the audience to interpret, which may lead to some confusion, especially when it comes to the final scene of the movie.
Fear not, because Decider is here to help. Read on for a breakdown of A Real Pain plot summary and A Real Pain ending, including why Benji stayed at the airport.
A Real Pain plot summary:
Two very different cousins, David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Culkin), embark on a heritage tour of Poland in honor of their grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, who recently died. The movie opens with the cousins meeting at the airport, where Benji reveals he arrived hours early for the flight, because, apparently, he likes to hang out at airports.
David is uptight and anxious, and though he clearly loves his cousin, he also finds Benji’s free-spirited, eccentric, and loud personality to be off-putting. We see how charming and charismatic Benji can be, like when he convinces the entire tour group to take a silly group photo (minus David, who declines and then feels left out).
But we also see how volatile he can be, like when he has a shouting fit on the train over sitting first class on a tour about past suffering. Or when he confronts the tour guide about his “barrage of facts.” Or when he has a meltdown at a group dinner over a pointed comment from David about third-generation immigrants “living in their mom’s basement who smoke pot all day.” For each of these social faux pas, David feels obligated to apologize on behalf of his cousin.
At that fateful dinner, after Benji leaves the table, Benji shares that his cousin has always been “up and down.” It’s not said out loud, but it’s reasonable to assume he may have bipolar disorder. David vents his frustrations over his cousin’s behavior, noting that he, too, struggles with mental health issues but that he “knows my pain is unexceptional, so I don’t feel the need to burden everyone with it.” (Ironically, David follows up this statement with a tearful speech about living with Benji, which, one might argue, is “burdening” the group with his pain.) He also reveals that Benji once attempted suicide by overdose.
As they navigate their shared generational trauma and Jewish heritage, these two cousins find a way to better understand each other. One night, David asks Benji what he plans to do next, when he goes home to Binghamton. Benji gets defensive, and doesn’t seem to have a real answer, or a direction in life. David also confronts Benji about his suicide attempt, and admits he’s jealous of Benji’s effortless charm.
On their last day in Poland, the cousins leave the tour and visit their grandmothers old house. David suggests they place stones on the steps of the door—a Jewish tradition to memorialize late loved ones, and an echo of a suggestion Benji made earlier in the tour. Even though they get yelled at by a neighbor, David stands up for himself and his cousin. We see, in this moment, that David is making an effort to understand Benji, and even act a little bit more like him.
A Real Pain ending explained:
In the final scene of the movie, David and Benji say goodbye to each other at the airport in New York City. David invites Benji to come have dinner with his wife and kid, but Benji declines. He also declines Davids offer to accompany him to Penn Station to take a train back to Binghamton, where Benji lives. Instead, Benji said he wants to “kick it” at the airport.
“I kinda like it here,” he tells David. “You meet the craziest people.”
David, in response, slaps Benji, because Benji had previously told him that once their grandmother had slapped him, and it was “the best thing that ever happened to him,” because it showed how much she cared about him. But David quickly realizes this is a different situation, and apologizes. It’s a funny moment, but it’s also sweet, because we see David wants desperately to demonstrate that he cares about Benji, but still isn’t sure how to do that.
David and Benji laugh, hug it out, and exchange “I love you’s.” Benji insists to David he’ll be fine. David reluctantly leaves, and Benji stays at the airport.
In the final scene of the movie, David greets his wife and kids, while Benji sits alone at the airport, exchanging friendly looks with the strangers around him.
Why does Benji stay at the airport at the end of A Real Pain?
You can interpret the Real Pain ending in different ways, but my interpretation is that Benji stays at the airport because he really has no where else to go. Yes, he presumably has a residence in Binghamton, but unlike David, there will be no one to greet him when he gets home. You get the sense throughout the film that his only close personal relationship was with his grandmother, which is why he took her death so hard.
Benji seems to know that he is a burden on his cousin David, and he genuinely doesn’t want to be one. He just doesn’t know any other way to be. That’s why he declined David’s invitation to dinner. It’s also, maybe, why he hopes to find human connection with strangers at the airport. For someone like Benji, it’s easy to quickly connect with strangers, thanks to his charisma. It’s when they get to know him better, and uncover his volatile personality, that he becomes a burden. Perhaps that’s why he’s drawn a space like an airport, where you can have a casual interaction with strangers. Most people there don’t feel threatened and have time to spare, and are therefore open to chatting.
But hey, that’s just what I think. If you have a different take on A Real Pain‘s ending, let me know in the comments.
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