Episode 175
A Real Pain (2024) with E.T. Lyons
I'm joined by E.T. Lyons to discuss Oscar winning A Real Pain.
E.T. Lyons
https://www.instagram.com/e.t.lyons/
https://letterboxd.com/etlyons/
https://www.threads.net/@e.t.lyons
Left of the Projector Links
https://www.patreon.com/LeftoftheProjectorPod
https://leftoftheprojector.com
https://instagram.com/leftoftheprojector
Transcript
Evan: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I am your host, Evan,
Speaker:Evan: back again with another film discussion from the left.
Speaker:Evan: You can follow the show at leftoftheprojector.com.
Speaker:Evan: This week on the show, we are coming to you with a 2024 film directed by Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain.
Speaker:Evan: He was also the writer for the film, and it stars himself, Karen Culkin,
Speaker:Evan: Will Sharp, Jennifer Grey, Lisa Sadowski, and Daniel Oriskas.
Speaker:Evan: I'm very bad at pronunciations, so I'm sorry, Daniel, if I mispronounce your name.
Speaker:Evan: This week on the show, I am joined by Keetee Lyons, or Ellie,
Speaker:Evan: and welcome to the show, and thanks for joining me.
Speaker:Ellie: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker:Evan: Of course, and I mentioned, I guess, your dual name, E.T.
Speaker:Evan: Lyons and Ellie, but feel free to let everyone know maybe what you do,
Speaker:Evan: who you are, where they can find you.
Speaker:Ellie: And of course, I'll.
Speaker:Evan: Link to all those fancy internet places afterwards.
Speaker:Ellie: Awesome good stuff so i'm a genre writer i
Speaker:Ellie: mostly write sci-fi i'm trying to build my portfolio of
Speaker:Ellie: write down video games uh so i'm also a hobbyist solo developer i'm slowly but
Speaker:Ellie: surely working on a little cyberpunk horror i also work part-time with horses
Speaker:Ellie: which you might know if you follow me online and so that gives me a window into
Speaker:Ellie: sort of the labor and agriculture world as well um but yeah so i just do stuff
Speaker:Ellie: on the internet awesome Awesome.
Speaker:Evan: Perfect. Yeah, that's, um, I actually, I don't know how I didn't know that your
Speaker:Evan: cyberpunk book sounds pretty awesome. I love, uh, that's really.
Speaker:Ellie: Uh, yeah, it's exciting. Definitely gives me a taste for,
Speaker:Ellie: the types of films that you probably gravitate towards thematically.
Speaker:Ellie: I know you've done a lot of sci-fi on the pod.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, not as many recently, but I've done, I guess, all like some of my favorites,
Speaker:Evan: like, you know, Blade Runner and, you know, ones like adjacent to that in some ways are all fun.
Speaker:Evan: But we kind of, usually when I send out like a list of films to discuss or like
Speaker:Evan: for the guests to choose a few, and then we kind of come across one.
Speaker:Evan: In this case, I think we sort of, I don't know exactly how it got led to it,
Speaker:Evan: but we ended up drawing towards A Real Pain, which again just came out last
Speaker:Evan: year and was nominated for a few Academy Awards,
Speaker:Evan: has gotten a lot of accolades and other award shows.
Speaker:Evan: So I don't know, I guess kind of what led you to think about doing that one?
Speaker:Evan: I know this is kind of like a, we both kind of thought about doing it,
Speaker:Evan: but like what gravitated, like what, what made you kind of gravitate towards
Speaker:Evan: that film as one worth kind of discussing?
Speaker:Ellie: I feel like I just stumbled randomly on the trailer at one point.
Speaker:Ellie: I've actually, I wasn't in much of a movie phase recently. I was in kind of
Speaker:Ellie: a movie rut, given my attention span.
Speaker:Ellie: I kind of tend to get really immersed in things. So I like series,
Speaker:Ellie: books, longer forms of content, but I finally got my love of movies back.
Speaker:Ellie: Because I'm very excited and I've been catching up on things.
Speaker:Ellie: But yeah, so I just, timing, I happened to see the trailer and the trailer is
Speaker:Ellie: edited. Trailer is a masterclass in trailers, by the way. It's edited really well.
Speaker:Ellie: Shows a lot of high and low moments, great use of music, but some of Colkin's
Speaker:Ellie: like really strong acting was in there.
Speaker:Ellie: Eisenberg's great writing was in there. So that lured me in.
Speaker:Ellie: And then I also saw a couple people post online about having gone to early screenings
Speaker:Ellie: and they were raving about it.
Speaker:Ellie: I think we both just kind of gravitated to it around the same time.
Speaker:Ellie: I also, I do work in sci-fi all the time, but like sci-fi is great,
Speaker:Ellie: but it's such a genre in general, sci-fi and horror,
Speaker:Ellie: such vehicles for making cultural commentary that I find it can be more interesting
Speaker:Ellie: sometimes to look at things that you wouldn't traditionally assume are like
Speaker:Ellie: critical systems and all that.
Speaker:Ellie: So I think A Real Pain was great in how subtle some of its commentary was,
Speaker:Ellie: but just really neatly woven throughout.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, I agree. I think I'm also, again, like a big horror and sci-fi type of
Speaker:Evan: film, you know, probably my favorite genres, but then I sometimes forget about
Speaker:Evan: other movies that don't fill into that.
Speaker:Evan: Even like action movies, which I guess is kind of adjacent, but this is neither of those.
Speaker:Evan: This is more, I think, what is, I wonder if Wikipedia is official.
Speaker:Evan: They call it a buddy road comedy drama, which I think is kind of a funny,
Speaker:Evan: I mean, not that I can, you go by the Wikipedia is like a description,
Speaker:Evan: but I know we started talking about the, the, the film at hand or real pain,
Speaker:Evan: but I sometimes like to ask, you know, kind of a question unrelated to the film,
Speaker:Evan: whether it's like sometimes, you know,
Speaker:Evan: like an actor you might want to have dinner with or something.
Speaker:Evan: But being that it's like the beginning of 2025, I guess, a month or so in,
Speaker:Evan: I was curious what like movies your like top anticipated films for the year.
Speaker:Evan: And I won't say, but the two you picked are also in my top three.
Speaker:Ellie: Awesome. Yeah, it can be hard. I'm so sort of like scatterbrained about what
Speaker:Ellie: I'm into and what I'm watching that I don't really follow release announcements or anything.
Speaker:Ellie: So as far as anticipating, it took me a minute. but i'm really
Speaker:Ellie: excited about 28 years later um danny boyle's
Speaker:Ellie: you know follow-up in that trilogy uh 28
Speaker:Ellie: days later you know the first one with killian murphy's one of
Speaker:Ellie: my favorite horror movies so i'm excited to see what he does with it and
Speaker:Ellie: the trailer looked promising and then mickey 17 as
Speaker:Ellie: well bung john hose um june hose might
Speaker:Ellie: be mispronounced i'm also not great at pronunciation i know i butchered all
Speaker:Ellie: of them um mickey 17 so i'm excited about that it's obviously you know sci-fi
Speaker:Ellie: and has some interesting themes um patents i love robert patents and i just
Speaker:Ellie: think he's like killed it in every role he's taken and recently he's made some
Speaker:Ellie: great choices in terms of scripts so i'm sort of tied in between those yeah.
Speaker:Evan: For me it's i mean definitely the uh mickey 17 i i saw when i was just i just
Speaker:Evan: went to see um uh the monkey uh like an advanced screening and there was a a
Speaker:Evan: bunch of uh like things and you know,
Speaker:Evan: talking about that movie and just getting people interested in it.
Speaker:Evan: But I think the other one that I'm interested in, I'm now I'm blanking out. Oh, I know.
Speaker:Evan: Maybe it's not. Is it a, I can't remember now if it's a film or a show.
Speaker:Evan: No, I think it's a film. It's like the new Predator movie.
Speaker:Evan: Although I don't have like super high hope. I think it's Predator Badlands.
Speaker:Evan: I don't know if it's going to be good. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it won't be.
Speaker:Evan: I know that Prey, I really enjoyed like the last version. And so I'm hoping that Ellie Fanning.
Speaker:Ellie: Oh, it looks like a good cast.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, it is definitely a good cast. And I don't know.
Speaker:Evan: It's not till the end of the year. And then I think at the same time as I'm
Speaker:Evan: now like rattling off a bunch of other ones.
Speaker:Evan: Also, the new Edgar Wright version of The Running Man.
Speaker:Evan: I love anything Edgar Wright has ever done.
Speaker:Evan: So hopefully he'll do a good job on the remake with Glenn Powell. So we'll see.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah yeah those are both on my radar now i forgot that they were doing another
Speaker:Ellie: running man i'm a big stephen king fan so we should we'll see how that goes.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah i hope that is more faithful to the book
Speaker:Evan: the first one is i don't know loosely i mean
Speaker:Evan: it's a large it was more like an arnold schwarzenegger vehicle than it
Speaker:Evan: was like uh you know you can and if
Speaker:Evan: you're interested in the running man we did an episode on that pot on this podcast
Speaker:Evan: i don't know like listen to that to the listeners uh out there it's from probably
Speaker:Evan: two years ago at this point now but we can i guess shift back into uh the the
Speaker:Evan: film at hand and i think you mentioned like how the trailer was like really
Speaker:Evan: captivating and i think what,
Speaker:Evan: Maybe it's like a good segue into sort of like the first thing I thought about
Speaker:Evan: when I'm watching it is the two leads, again, Kiernan Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg.
Speaker:Evan: Jesse Eisenberg being the director and co-star in the film.
Speaker:Evan: And just how the two of them in both the trailer and then immediately within
Speaker:Evan: the first, I guess the first 10 minutes of the movie, you see their personalities
Speaker:Evan: and just how different the two of them are.
Speaker:Evan: Like these two different complete art different archetypes of
Speaker:Evan: a character one that's very you know outgoing and sort
Speaker:Evan: of uh willing to just talk to anyone being kieran culkin and then jesse eisenberg
Speaker:Evan: is this very sort of i don't know i wrote down uh like uh awkward you know awkward
Speaker:Evan: be you know the around people and it's just immediately i'm like man this is
Speaker:Evan: going to be such a interesting dynamic of the two of them and.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah i love that too it really like everything conspires
Speaker:Ellie: to show you how they are i loved that opening sort
Speaker:Ellie: of pan to um benji you know
Speaker:Ellie: colkin because it was almost unexpected they were going by you
Speaker:Ellie: know sides rows of people sitting in just an iconic very you know recognizable
Speaker:Ellie: plane terminal we've all been there um and i think the shot sets up and you
Speaker:Ellie: think that they're going to get to the front of all these rows and you know
Speaker:Ellie: colkin's going to be there but it turns out we already passed him it's like
Speaker:Ellie: swivels camera swivels around someone's shoulder and like pass their back to come into him.
Speaker:Ellie: Um, and it's like, yeah, it's just, you know, he's a dude. He's a guy who's
Speaker:Ellie: been sitting there just like you would see at a terminal. And he's very sort of quiet and still.
Speaker:Ellie: And of course we learned later that this is footage after cause he's in the
Speaker:Ellie: clothes from after the trip.
Speaker:Ellie: Um, at least I think so. Right. Yeah.
Speaker:Ellie: I'm fairly certain it's, it's from when he gets off.
Speaker:Evan: That's actually a, I.
Speaker:Ellie: Feel like he was in the clothes for,
Speaker:Ellie: that's an interesting isn't the shot lead up and him sitting down kind of the
Speaker:Ellie: same in the end it's almost like a circle yeah regardless he's all still and
Speaker:Ellie: pensive and then they cut right to,
Speaker:Ellie: david um eisenberg's character who's like frantically out the door in new york
Speaker:Ellie: he's got two bags on he's on the cell phone um and then he's in a car and he's
Speaker:Ellie: frantically like he's flustered you know he's the one who has his life more
Speaker:Ellie: together you know he doesn't walk around dressed like a hippie,
Speaker:Ellie: he has a wife, he's a house,
Speaker:Ellie: he has, you know, a job, but he's the one who is always seeming to like be running
Speaker:Ellie: late and be anxious and like stressed and uncomfortable in his body.
Speaker:Ellie: And you get there, I think it would have been really easy for them to go the
Speaker:Ellie: cliche route and to show that their opposites just have Benji be like really
Speaker:Ellie: late and unapologetic about it.
Speaker:Ellie: But instead, they have him get there early, but like suspiciously,
Speaker:Ellie: like, why is this guy hanging out in the airport for like hours?
Speaker:Ellie: And he has that kind of frantic, I don't want to say he's got almost like kind of a tweaker energy.
Speaker:Ellie: He's like excited, but he seems a bit suspicious. And you're like,
Speaker:Ellie: okay, I love this guy, but also something's going on because who would just
Speaker:Ellie: be hanging out in an airport?
Speaker:Ellie: And his cousin is equally kind of incredulous and surprised.
Speaker:Ellie: And you can tell, obviously,
Speaker:Ellie: even just from the small bits of conversation and the fact that he's felt the
Speaker:Ellie: need to micromanage him via voicemails that Benji, they convey right away that
Speaker:Ellie: this history, that Benji is not the reliable one.
Speaker:Ellie: He's concerned that Benji's going to like miss the trip. and then meet up when he's there early.
Speaker:Ellie: I also, I think an interesting point, it reminded me of him talking about just
Speaker:Ellie: like sitting in the airport. And you see that again in the end,
Speaker:Ellie: he's like, I'm just gonna hang out here.
Speaker:Ellie: There's, I mean, the commodification of everything, I feel like has made this
Speaker:Ellie: attitude pervade of like, there's a suspiciousness towards sort of leisure and
Speaker:Ellie: just doing something for the sake of doing it.
Speaker:Ellie: If someone's like loitering, of course, very rightfully in an airport in a post
Speaker:Ellie: 9-11 world, you should be probably
Speaker:Ellie: suspicious of people who are just hanging out for hours and hours.
Speaker:Ellie: But in general, people want to hear that you're doing something for some sort
Speaker:Ellie: of commodified purpose.
Speaker:Ellie: Like, I'm here to perform a business transaction or I'm waiting for this person.
Speaker:Ellie: And Benji is someone who doesn't follow those rules or conventions at all.
Speaker:Ellie: So he's like, I'm just going to hang out in this space that no one would ever
Speaker:Ellie: associate with willingly staying in.
Speaker:Ellie: But yeah, I think everything, the editing sound, even just the way they're dressed
Speaker:Ellie: and the little bits of writing in that opening scene instantly convey like who
Speaker:Ellie: these people are, their history together, it hints at that and why they're coming
Speaker:Ellie: together, which is awesome.
Speaker:Ellie: And it makes you, it kind of gives you stakes because you start to already immediately
Speaker:Ellie: jump in and sort of like or dislike these characters. So there's sort of stakes
Speaker:Ellie: involved in the relationship.
Speaker:Evan: We have one of my favorite moments when they're
Speaker:Evan: in the well two of my favorite moments when they're in the airport before they take off
Speaker:Evan: on the flight is one when benji has the like
Speaker:Evan: he well yeah um not benji david's like
Speaker:Evan: he's hungry or whatever and benji pulls the yogurt out like
Speaker:Evan: the warm yogurt out of his pocket like oh yeah just you know use the lid to
Speaker:Evan: you to eat it and then when they're waiting at the gate and he brings out like
Speaker:Evan: the what was it like a trail mix or uh yeah something and then it basically
Speaker:Evan: becomes benji's it's like now mine and i'm giving it to you as this thing it's
Speaker:Evan: just you can see that yeah.
Speaker:Ellie: You see that benji's conception of like what property and ownership is it's
Speaker:Ellie: not the same as other people.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah it's just sort of like he just uh he just considers you know i don't know
Speaker:Evan: it's like he has to be the in this in that moment he's like has to be like the
Speaker:Evan: nurturing one like helping his friend where it seems like the opposite is actually
Speaker:Evan: true where you know the that.
Speaker:Ellie: Played into sort of how it's not their their
Speaker:Ellie: dichotomy their dualism here it's not black and white simple
Speaker:Ellie: like this you know one is a versus b
Speaker:Ellie: um you see it kind of waver throughout and you see
Speaker:Ellie: a lot of similarities throughout so you mentioned that like he's
Speaker:Ellie: taking on the nurturing role here he is um and then later you see david trying
Speaker:Ellie: to hop into that role there's like there's a give and take and a push and pull
Speaker:Ellie: and you do see them butting heads but you also see them like trying to accommodate
Speaker:Ellie: for each other which is nice the yogurt thing i also again i really liked how
Speaker:Ellie: that felt like a bit of a subversion to me because if this was just a normal
Speaker:Ellie: sort of road trip comedy,
Speaker:Ellie: you know, the odd couple, one figure would just like, I don't know,
Speaker:Ellie: make a big point of being disgusted by a warm yogurt from his pocket.
Speaker:Ellie: But instead, in this movie, David is like weirdly touched by it.
Speaker:Ellie: He looked down at it and he was like, you got this for me?
Speaker:Ellie: And that just goes to show you like how much these people care about each other,
Speaker:Ellie: even though they're estranged.
Speaker:Ellie: And maybe there's a hint of like David is like, oh, he's kind of thinking ahead
Speaker:Ellie: for me. And he's actually being responsible for once. That's nice.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, it almost felt like a weight lifted off his shoulders.
Speaker:Evan: Like, oh, I had to, you know, I'm the one who's late.
Speaker:Evan: I was going to have to find food. But Benji, the one who usually is late and
Speaker:Evan: probably needs me to feed him, is the one feeding me.
Speaker:Evan: And also, like, even though this is like maybe...
Speaker:Evan: Saying too much about like the two, like feeding, like a food parts.
Speaker:Evan: It also reminds me of like, I think of like, uh, you know, my grandmother when
Speaker:Evan: I was younger, of like always wanting to, you know, give you food when you would
Speaker:Evan: come over to their house or like feed you like, are you hungry?
Speaker:Evan: Like giving you all these different things. It felt like, uh,
Speaker:Evan: as we learned soon after this, that their grandmother had died.
Speaker:Evan: Benji was very close to her. And this is almost like him taking on the,
Speaker:Evan: you know, I'm going to feed my cousin because that's like the role that my grandmother
Speaker:Evan: would have done somewhere i don't know exactly.
Speaker:Ellie: That's yeah filling someone's plate is definitely a grandmother's like love
Speaker:Ellie: language um falling into that is is telling about the journey with grief they're
Speaker:Ellie: having as well like you said.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah and i think that like you maybe don't get this initially from the film
Speaker:Evan: maybe just the fact that you know going into it perhaps if you've seen the trailer
Speaker:Evan: you've read anything about it you know that they're on their way to poland to
Speaker:Evan: go on a trip to see where their grandmother had come from,
Speaker:Evan: see her actual house growing up before she had to, you know,
Speaker:Evan: vacate during the Holocaust and move eventually to the United States.
Speaker:Evan: And it immediately, like, the first thing you can think of is that these two
Speaker:Evan: characters are going on this trip where they're going to see both,
Speaker:Evan: you know, happy things where their
Speaker:Evan: grandmother had been, then also sort of these less than happy things.
Speaker:Evan: And it's the, like, the grief is obviously the
Speaker:Evan: sort of the undertone of the entire film and
Speaker:Evan: then you can also just think of the title too like
Speaker:Evan: as like a double meeting of like they're in pain but then is
Speaker:Evan: it also that benji kieran collins character
Speaker:Evan: is also a pain to deal with and i just like the
Speaker:Evan: uh like again like that duality and then
Speaker:Evan: just the the grief sort of undertone and
Speaker:Evan: like also when they're walking through the airport and the way that benji acts
Speaker:Evan: it seems like it's his defense mechanism against you know grief like we don't
Speaker:Evan: know what he was like you know before this exactly but i would suffice to say
Speaker:Evan: it's like a similar thing he's just like taking it up to an 11 yeah.
Speaker:Ellie: I would say it's probably the same and there's no actual confirmation and you
Speaker:Ellie: know anything about the film or the the script but there are i feel like there
Speaker:Ellie: are hints there and the fact that you know this change in him is not a
Speaker:Ellie: time-wise like pinpointed exactly
Speaker:Ellie: to like in response to when his
Speaker:Ellie: grandmother died i mean we don't they're kind of abstract and vague about the
Speaker:Ellie: timing of some of like the aspects of his charm that his cousin is talking about
Speaker:Ellie: so you know he could have always been kind of a little bit overbearing and that
Speaker:Ellie: like you said that grief is just um him taking into a bit of an 11 but yeah
Speaker:Ellie: you definitely feel that in him.
Speaker:Evan: Well one other thing i i wrote in my like in my notes uh like Like how you're,
Speaker:Evan: as you see the entire film, or I think maybe you already mentioned this too,
Speaker:Evan: that the characters are not, you know, simplistic, like,
Speaker:Evan: you know, Kieran is sort of like the good guy because he, you know,
Speaker:Evan: is acting like he's very talkative to the people he meets on the trip and he's
Speaker:Evan: very open and talks about his feelings.
Speaker:Evan: Whereas, you know, the David character is more, you know, kind of reserved and
Speaker:Evan: we see him later taking like medicine, which he kind of alludes to as a,
Speaker:Evan: you know, way to help like regulate his emotions and feelings.
Speaker:Ellie: And yeah, he says OCD meds, which is, you know, OCD can be a lot in terms of
Speaker:Ellie: impulse, especially living in the modern world that we live in.
Speaker:Ellie: So yeah, I'd say, like you said, they're not they're not just a flat,
Speaker:Ellie: like spectrum dichotomy, good, bad.
Speaker:Ellie: They both have very similar impulses. If you break it down, they're just kind
Speaker:Ellie: of having them at different moments. And they're never really in sync.
Speaker:Ellie: Like, you'll see, I mean, Benji, in a way is trying to position himself at least
Speaker:Ellie: outwardly to the group as the person who wants to be the most in touch with,
Speaker:Ellie: you know, feelings and emotions.
Speaker:Ellie: Emotion because he's complaining about how they're hiding pain but
Speaker:Ellie: he does bring up with like David tries to
Speaker:Ellie: have conversations with him before they ever have
Speaker:Ellie: a really deep conversation like even in the airport he's asking him how he's
Speaker:Ellie: doing like David makes it entreaties to try and like get to the bottom of what's
Speaker:Ellie: actually going on with Benji and Benji kind of shrugs or like you know pushes
Speaker:Ellie: it off somehow or maybe he directs it more to like let's have some fun So he's
Speaker:Ellie: trying to encourage them to all feel their feelings and be honest and upfront about it.
Speaker:Ellie: But he kind of wants to control when those feelings are being revealed.
Speaker:Ellie: And he's not super open about them himself all the time, unless,
Speaker:Ellie: you know, after he's had a joint or something.
Speaker:Evan: Right.
Speaker:Ellie: Which is a whole nother topic. So it's kind of like, I think the way they're
Speaker:Ellie: both shown, if you break the movie apart a lot in terms of,
Speaker:Ellie: the motivation in each sort of beat of the characters they're very similar they
Speaker:Ellie: just have very different coping mechanisms.
Speaker:Evan: I mean i think i think you noted like the i guess it's a good point to talk
Speaker:Evan: about is like they're like the reliance on substances where you mentioned that
Speaker:Evan: like david or sorry benji mails
Speaker:Evan: like a package of marijuana to to poland which at first i think david.
Speaker:Ellie: Doesn't know it's in the mail either he thinks he's trying to slip it through this.
Speaker:Evan: Well it's very clear the first time i watched it i thought that that was
Speaker:Evan: the case too like you're just like oh man he's just like being really he
Speaker:Evan: doesn't specify yeah and then and then as you said like david
Speaker:Evan: takes you know pills for his ocd and to kind
Speaker:Evan: of you know regulate living in again he lives in
Speaker:Evan: new york city he probably has a very you know uh he has a small child a wife
Speaker:Evan: you know maybe a demanding job and all these things are like tough to deal with
Speaker:Evan: and so they're each dealing with their own you know their lives and their coping
Speaker:Evan: mechanism coping mechanisms in different ways and at the end of the day they're kind of similar it.
Speaker:Ellie: Wasn't like a judgment thing at all i think.
Speaker:Evan: We all have coping.
Speaker:Ellie: Mechanisms and that makes so much sense and they're both such likable characters
Speaker:Ellie: i just think it's interesting how they're not necessarily to like
Speaker:Ellie: they're similar deep down it's just how they've chosen to deal with that whether
Speaker:Ellie: it's you know coping mechanisms or like the lifestyles they've gone into how
Speaker:Ellie: they've tried to find balance happiness meaning have just been on two slightly
Speaker:Ellie: different routes which is just an important thing when it comes to thinking
Speaker:Ellie: about human nature and connecting with other people is,
Speaker:Ellie: you know, finding those similarities.
Speaker:Ellie: But I think you see, like, it's an impulse that can, that can go wrong,
Speaker:Ellie: this need to like, be very honest emotionally.
Speaker:Ellie: Because we see when Benji has sort of almost tantrums, where he makes great
Speaker:Ellie: points, but like, I kept getting secondhand embarrassment.
Speaker:Ellie: I was like, there was something about like societal convention where I'm like,
Speaker:Ellie: can you stop raising your voice or like, stop, you know, downing beers at the table. But,
Speaker:Ellie: It does make great points. I just think sometimes when you have certain impulses,
Speaker:Ellie: if they're not directed constructively, they end up tearing your relationships
Speaker:Ellie: apart, as you said, or killing the vibe, or as you see, or killing the vibe.
Speaker:Ellie: Or they also, they can be really self-destructive.
Speaker:Ellie: You see that deep down, sadly, Benji's not a very happy or satisfied person in his life, you know?
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, it's totally true. and like i think like
Speaker:Evan: the one of the other aspects of like the grief thing like
Speaker:Evan: it kind of links directly into sort of like the i
Speaker:Evan: think i already mentioned like the pain and the suffering that they're both feeling
Speaker:Evan: as you alluded to like the scene where later at a
Speaker:Evan: restaurant where he's drinking a bunch of beers they're always needing to like
Speaker:Evan: smoke a joint and all these like moments end up
Speaker:Evan: sort of like coming out at the at a you know
Speaker:Evan: a random thing that doesn't seem to be
Speaker:Evan: maybe related but it kind of just triggers something in benji more than anyone
Speaker:Evan: else and then that triggers in turn like also embarrassment from david like
Speaker:Evan: he's clearly embarrassed by his cousin like numerous times throughout especially
Speaker:Evan: on the train and then i think later at the dinner is like the culmination of everything yeah.
Speaker:Ellie: With the with the big great monologue from eisenberg um
Speaker:Ellie: yeah i think i think we just
Speaker:Ellie: we see those impulses going around and obviously they bring up a
Speaker:Ellie: great point about sort of generational drama I think when I was thinking about
Speaker:Ellie: coping mechanisms I wasn't thinking they were just even coping with like their
Speaker:Ellie: lives and their individual stresses but there's something to be said about this
Speaker:Ellie: movie making statements about sort of just like human stress that we all seem
Speaker:Ellie: to have now from the way that we live and from the way that you know we have
Speaker:Ellie: all this trauma surrounding us,
Speaker:Ellie: so and you see how other people deal with it too in terms of the tour group,
Speaker:Ellie: and I think you know there's there's a range of people dealing with it.
Speaker:Ellie: And I think all of it is written in a very grounded, naturalistic way,
Speaker:Ellie: nonjudgmental way to basically saying like, it's just something you have to reckon with.
Speaker:Ellie: It's hard to have a history like this.
Speaker:Ellie: It's, there's no, there isn't really a right pattern proscript way to like engage properly with it.
Speaker:Ellie: It's like, what emotional, exact emotional distance am I supposed to have in
Speaker:Ellie: every situation? It's, it's really hard to talk because sometimes you're too
Speaker:Ellie: close or you're too far from it.
Speaker:Evan: You talked about the other, like the other people on the trip.
Speaker:Evan: So once they do arrive in Poland, they're at the hotel where they're meeting,
Speaker:Evan: they're like, they have this sort of private tour with just a few other people.
Speaker:Evan: And I've really enjoyed like the scene where they're each introducing each other,
Speaker:Evan: like Like both is very like, like you're kind of like cringing at the way that
Speaker:Evan: Benji is again, like speaking very openly, referring to other people.
Speaker:Evan: You know, one of the other characters, his name was Eloge, was a survivor of
Speaker:Evan: the Rwandan genocide and to convert it to Judaism and is there to,
Speaker:Evan: you know, connect with the, you know, the Jewish past.
Speaker:Evan: And then you have a recently divorced wife who's played by Jennifer Gray.
Speaker:Evan: And she's sort of going on this trip to
Speaker:Evan: kind of reconnect as well and then you lastly have a like an
Speaker:Evan: older couple that's uh also there
Speaker:Evan: and it's like a very somehow like the group
Speaker:Evan: of people are couldn't be any more different than
Speaker:Evan: you know each other but in some ways they all have some sort of shared they
Speaker:Evan: have this like shared uh you know generational trauma that you were talking
Speaker:Evan: about you know together in some way that like makes them like this i don't know
Speaker:Evan: an intro it just it just it's very interesting that's a terrible descriptor
Speaker:Evan: but it's a very interesting group of people that you follow.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah i thought the dynamics were really smartly sort
Speaker:Ellie: of plotted like who they decided to put in this group
Speaker:Ellie: as far as demonstrating a spectrum of experiences but
Speaker:Ellie: similarities um i love that opening introductory
Speaker:Ellie: conversation with aloj because i feel like and i
Speaker:Ellie: mean it's just written so well too it's a you know obviously it's such a short run
Speaker:Ellie: time um it's written so tight in a great way
Speaker:Ellie: that like the scenes are so expressive and there's so
Speaker:Ellie: much in them and then i look at how long the scene was and it was like 30
Speaker:Ellie: seconds you know of dialogue it's great but
Speaker:Ellie: like eloge obviously when he's talking benji is like
Speaker:Ellie: wrapped in wrapped with attention he's leaning forward
Speaker:Ellie: in his seat body language wise you can
Speaker:Ellie: see he's almost like thrilled when eloge mentions he's he's
Speaker:Ellie: a survivor of the rwandan genocide um because
Speaker:Ellie: he finds it really interesting but i found that conversation so just honest
Speaker:Ellie: because benji said like all snap he kind of just said it out loud but he like
Speaker:Ellie: verbalized kind of almost what like sadly a lot of us are just that's our uncontrollable
Speaker:Ellie: immediate reaction when we hear from someone who is so associated with like
Speaker:Ellie: highly publicized trauma like that um.
Speaker:Ellie: So it's going to color our interactions, whether we like it or not going forward.
Speaker:Ellie: So the analog obviously knows this. He preempted it with a like,
Speaker:Ellie: yes, I am a survivor of the genocide, which you might be wondering.
Speaker:Ellie: It's something that he lives with and he knows how to like navigate people's
Speaker:Ellie: perceptions of it and the way it might color their interactions towards him.
Speaker:Ellie: So he got ahead of it. But I just thought it was such an honest depiction of
Speaker:Ellie: the legacy of living with, you know, trauma like that, because we're talking
Speaker:Ellie: about very past trauma here. Well, not very past.
Speaker:Ellie: This is their grandmother. That's, you know, very like recent past.
Speaker:Ellie: But, you know, we're talking very historical terms, but they've got someone
Speaker:Ellie: on the tour who literally lived through a genocide. side.
Speaker:Ellie: So as far as like reckoning, reckoning with trauma and loss and history,
Speaker:Ellie: this movie is kind of asking questions about both like history and also how
Speaker:Ellie: do we do that when the distance is reduced?
Speaker:Ellie: Like what assumptions do we make about people? How do we have meaningful conversations
Speaker:Ellie: with them while respecting their experience?
Speaker:Ellie: How do those people live with, you know, being tied to that for the rest of their lives?
Speaker:Ellie: So I thought including him was awesome. Then that conversation later that he
Speaker:Ellie: had about like customs and keeping Shabbat was I thought it was important that
Speaker:Ellie: they bring that up occasionally because there's a lot of sort of discussion
Speaker:Ellie: about like being culturally Jewish versus being practicing different degrees
Speaker:Ellie: of like how many traditions you're keeping so and that's also.
Speaker:Ellie: Factors into our whole conversation about our relationships with the past anyway sorry i'm just rambling.
Speaker:Evan: No no i love.
Speaker:Ellie: That opening yeah.
Speaker:Evan: No no you're you're good like i think that's like a good point
Speaker:Evan: too about the him you know because some people might be thinking like oh you
Speaker:Evan: know he's he's like jewish but like why is he on this trip like he's he's not
Speaker:Evan: you know like i mean he is jewish by conversion but like it it kind of separates
Speaker:Evan: it by then linking it with like another genocide,
Speaker:Evan: you know, that he experienced, you know,
Speaker:Evan: firsthand, I think it makes this just an interesting, you know, uh, link to them.
Speaker:Evan: And then the part about like the secular, you know, the, like the,
Speaker:Evan: he's like, he's trying to tell, he doesn't like know David very well,
Speaker:Evan: but he's telling him like in this two day period, he's like,
Speaker:Evan: Hey, you know, I think you should, you know, practice these things.
Speaker:Evan: I think they would be like really good for you around you.
Speaker:Ellie: It takes some more time to be present.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. It's an interesting, you know, moment. And I think it's right after that,
Speaker:Evan: that one of my favorite you know i know we're talking about a couple of the
Speaker:Evan: scenes but one of my favorite scenes i think in the entire was a few of that
Speaker:Evan: i right that we can talk about but they're they're start talking and i think
Speaker:Evan: maybe it's not the exact scene is that the moment when they're talking about
Speaker:Evan: shabbat and then the other marcia comes when they're on.
Speaker:Ellie: The bridge yeah and then that whole the conversation i think i know.
Speaker:Evan: About what they're talking essentially about like pain and like we.
Speaker:Ellie: Numb ourselves yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah i just found that that interesting that scene is very interesting because
Speaker:Evan: it to me again for people who've probably listened to this show as uh you know
Speaker:Evan: as a jewish person and uh you know um talk about that in different ways but they kind of,
Speaker:Evan: are referring to the idea of like ignoring suffering and you know maybe people
Speaker:Evan: even ignore to some extent the rwanda genocide like most people have heard of
Speaker:Evan: it but maybe people don't actually have any real understanding or connection
Speaker:Evan: to it so having a character in it.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah exactly and There are tons of other, you know, tragedies that have happened
Speaker:Ellie: around that same time period that weren't just for whatever reason didn't end
Speaker:Ellie: up getting publicized as much, too.
Speaker:Ellie: So it's kind of sad, like, what things we will have a reaction to.
Speaker:Ellie: And it's arbitrary based on the media is what I'm saying. It's not even just
Speaker:Ellie: about, you know, the tragedies and things.
Speaker:Ellie: Right, right. So it's interesting that, like...
Speaker:Ellie: You're probably going to encounter people from countries too that have massive
Speaker:Ellie: tragedies in their past.
Speaker:Ellie: And, you know, we don't know anything about it, which brings up a whole other
Speaker:Ellie: subject about education. But yeah, as you were saying, about sort of genocide
Speaker:Ellie: and the history of tragedy there and having to ignore it.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, I mean, I couldn't when I did. So the first time that I watched this film,
Speaker:Evan: I immediately like I, I don't write reviews for every film I do like on Letterboxd.
Speaker:Evan: Sometimes I'll just write like a funny line or, you know, just something that
Speaker:Evan: struck me or like maybe if I'm feeling adventurous, I'll write like a full on review.
Speaker:Evan: But my review after reading or reading after watching the film really took me as far as that scene.
Speaker:Evan: And then later the moment when they actually go to the concentration camp,
Speaker:Evan: it reminded me a lot of the one of my, I don't want to call it favorite films,
Speaker:Evan: but like one of the most moving ones last year, which was the zone of interest
Speaker:Evan: where you sort of have this suffering.
Speaker:Evan: And you have this family, maybe anyone who has to know that film,
Speaker:Evan: is about the, you know, the Nazis who are literally living across a literal
Speaker:Evan: wall from an actual concentration camp.
Speaker:Evan: And they allude to that in this film, where there's people who are living just
Speaker:Evan: a few miles away from this concentration camp, who aren't really doing anything.
Speaker:Evan: They're not speaking out.
Speaker:Evan: They're just kind of living with this happening right near them.
Speaker:Evan: And I think that's what they're kind of talking about in that scene where,
Speaker:Evan: you know, people, you know, ignore the suffering, you know, because what can
Speaker:Evan: I do as an individual person?
Speaker:Evan: But if everyone's, you know, we're willing to speak up about these things more,
Speaker:Evan: you know, more knowledge about those can happen.
Speaker:Evan: And then again, it just is one of these things that like you can just kind of,
Speaker:Evan: for me at least, like as I dig in and further it, you know, maybe not be the
Speaker:Evan: exact same, but it just in my brain.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah, it makes total sense. I mean, I think there's a lot there with the way we live now, too.
Speaker:Ellie: It's even accelerated because as far as suffering goes, we're not just engaging
Speaker:Ellie: with the suffering of our like near neighbors like they were 100 years ago,
Speaker:Ellie: you know, where every day we're on our phones having, you know,
Speaker:Ellie: very real filmed evidence of suffering in our faces.
Speaker:Ellie: And it's a lot. It's a lot. You can feel very helpless.
Speaker:Ellie: It's a lot in terms of knowing, like, how do I participate? Like,
Speaker:Ellie: what's my duty as a human being?
Speaker:Ellie: But it's a constant barrage, you know, so there's that whole conversation surrounding
Speaker:Ellie: almost like, like, empathy tolerance,
Speaker:Ellie: which like emotional tolerance for like, how much we can even take as human
Speaker:Ellie: beings, because, you know, we're mammals, we weren't designed to live with knowledge
Speaker:Ellie: of what's going on all around all the time in our pockets.
Speaker:Ellie: So like, how are our nervous systems going to handle that
Speaker:Ellie: um so i think as far as like ignoring
Speaker:Ellie: modern suffering that it can speak to that and how
Speaker:Ellie: it's hard to have a relationship i mean their conversation
Speaker:Ellie: really is nailed on the head in terms of the difficulty of having that kind
Speaker:Ellie: of a relationship even the tour guide james who poor benji harps on i actually
Speaker:Ellie: think he did a really good job and he seemed to have a relatively grounded perspective
Speaker:Ellie: he got ahead of it in the introduction being like i know you might be asking
Speaker:Ellie: why a British person is involved in this tour.
Speaker:Ellie: I mean, he kind of accurately summed up why there are going to be triggers on
Speaker:Ellie: the trip during the train meltdown and all that.
Speaker:Ellie: And I think he handled the concentration camp, which I know we'll get to relatively
Speaker:Ellie: well in terms of the visit in terms of just like letting people feel their feelings,
Speaker:Ellie: processing, and all that.
Speaker:Ellie: And especially the way it was cut together that montage.
Speaker:Ellie: But like, it can be hard to know how to engage properly without being overwhelmed,
Speaker:Ellie: like what is constructive, what is not, what's self-pitying,
Speaker:Ellie: what's my place, should I be
Speaker:Ellie: concerning myself just with myself and what's going on with my neighbors.
Speaker:Ellie: It's a very human thing and it's a problem we're dealing with at a much higher
Speaker:Ellie: scale than even our ancestors had to deal with, but they were still dealing with it.
Speaker:Ellie: They point out, I mean, the concentration camp closest to the city comes up
Speaker:Ellie: a couple times, actually.
Speaker:Ellie: I remember when they're on the roof, they can see it and he points out,
Speaker:Ellie: hey, look, that light is in camp.
Speaker:Ellie: You know they're by a neon sign and he's in a funny hat and they're you know
Speaker:Ellie: smoking pot as americans and then the concentration camp is right there that
Speaker:Ellie: you know their ancestors narrowly avoided or survived i forget if their grandmother
Speaker:Ellie: i think their grandmother was.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah yeah she did yeah.
Speaker:Ellie: Uh she was yeah but like yeah so the the closeness of that but there's an element
Speaker:Ellie: too of like how capitalism just means as far as survival goes we'd be very concerned
Speaker:Ellie: with just our day-to-day stuff,
Speaker:Ellie: which is awful, and it can tempt you to just completely ignore tragedy,
Speaker:Ellie: but I think they accurately bring up too,
Speaker:Ellie: And David turns around and says, I don't know if we wept for every sad thing
Speaker:Ellie: in the world, what would that accomplish?
Speaker:Ellie: And then Benji's like, well, maybe sad shit wouldn't happen constantly,
Speaker:Ellie: which sounds nice in theory, but you know that there's a proper distance to
Speaker:Ellie: it, because if you just go around crying all the time, completely open heart,
Speaker:Ellie: you can't be constructive and end the cycle.
Speaker:Ellie: You're just going to be stuck in the self-pitying, self-sabotaging,
Speaker:Ellie: poor coping mechanisms.
Speaker:Ellie: So it's like, how do we find that distance that we can acknowledge and address
Speaker:Ellie: things and grow from them and not ignore them, but not be overwhelmed to the point of paralysis?
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, no, I mean, I completely agree. Like, it's not to say that,
Speaker:Evan: you know, I think they both kind of have a valid point.
Speaker:Evan: I think the thing right after that same scene, I think that David says, you know, I get all that.
Speaker:Evan: It seems like there's a time and a place to for grieving and
Speaker:Evan: maybe and then he gets cut off and then you know we're on
Speaker:Evan: a holocaust tour like come on like if there's not a time to
Speaker:Evan: to grieve you know this is it and i think it's like double meaning too like
Speaker:Evan: because he's also saying you know also referring to like their grandmother and
Speaker:Evan: like you know we're here grieving both like these things simultaneously and
Speaker:Evan: it's like how can you actually be grieving all those at once like it's a very difficult thing.
Speaker:Evan: And I completely agree about the, you know, we have our phone in our pocket
Speaker:Evan: that has unlimited potential of telling us things as they're happening around the world.
Speaker:Evan: And, you know, there's only so much, you know, we as individuals can do.
Speaker:Evan: And I think that that's kind of like David's perspective of like,
Speaker:Evan: well, I can be sad about this, but like, what will that actually accomplish?
Speaker:Evan: And so there is a real, like a dichotomy between those two perspectives.
Speaker:Ellie: And then he, well, he doesn't complicate. He enhances that point again,
Speaker:Ellie: you know, with the big, the great monologue at the piano bar,
Speaker:Ellie: because he's talking, he also, he adds the dimension of like,
Speaker:Ellie: he does feel sad all the time, basically.
Speaker:Ellie: He compares himself to Benji because he's saying, well, you know,
Speaker:Ellie: like, you don't, you seem kind of like you're okay.
Speaker:Ellie: And then he turns around and he's like, well, actually I'm not,
Speaker:Ellie: I have a great life, but also I take these pills and I swallow my sadness.
Speaker:Ellie: I'm paraphrasing massively, of course, but I walk around every day and I like,
Speaker:Ellie: I also feel like my sadness is so like common, that I don't,
Speaker:Ellie: you know, I shouldn't be burdening it, burdening other people with it.
Speaker:Ellie: So I mean, that speaks to just the idea of like, I think resiliency culture,
Speaker:Ellie: we're starting to unpack and realize is like,
Speaker:Ellie: this idea that we glorify people like surviving things and working really hard
Speaker:Ellie: and burning themselves out and like, taking things and tolerating things, essentially,
Speaker:Ellie: maybe isn't a good thing, and has negative consequences.
Speaker:Ellie: And And you see that a lot with them talking about the immigrant stories.
Speaker:Ellie: It's amazing what their immigrant ancestors survived.
Speaker:Ellie: But I think the fact that that's so encoded in our culture to be like,
Speaker:Ellie: look at all this tragedy they went through and they still made something of themselves.
Speaker:Ellie: And to celebrate that in sort of a weird way, because it's like the only way
Speaker:Ellie: we feel comfortable like engaging with it to not be a downer,
Speaker:Ellie: like turn it into something good, like they survived something.
Speaker:Evan: Um yeah as.
Speaker:Ellie: A culture as a person etc i can have a drawbacks because
Speaker:Ellie: when you apply it to a person you get burnout and you get not
Speaker:Ellie: being in touch with your feelings and you get feeling like oh i
Speaker:Ellie: can't bring this up because it's like it's too my sadness is too boring and
Speaker:Ellie: it's just like everyone else and i'm not entitled to burn that on other people
Speaker:Ellie: then you get like you know burnout and poor coping mechanisms and everything
Speaker:Ellie: so it this movie i think just asks a lot of questions it doesn't answer them
Speaker:Ellie: but that's great in this case because it just gets you thinking about it you know.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah and just to like go back to that the model
Speaker:Evan: and well maybe it's like right when the beginning the sort of the middle
Speaker:Evan: where he's sort of like directing all of his attention
Speaker:Evan: to the different people they're like you know you were uh you
Speaker:Evan: know uh when you sold like furniture to
Speaker:Evan: people and you know all these things and he's asking at the end sort of like
Speaker:Evan: how is it that you know my grandmother like survived all of these things and
Speaker:Evan: you know suffered so greatly came to america you know did what she did and meanwhile
Speaker:Evan: like my stupid cousin like has to try and kill himself because you know he's
Speaker:Evan: not like his life isn't perfect and it's sort of a very,
Speaker:Evan: it's a reasonable thing to ask i mean he's also suffering there and i don't
Speaker:Evan: know it's like he doesn't quite understand that you know life in itself is a
Speaker:Evan: is a hard you know it's a hard uh thing you know the just to simply survive
Speaker:Evan: you know maybe it wasn't the same aspect of like you know,
Speaker:Evan: Nazis trying to kill you necessarily, but, you know, there, you know,
Speaker:Evan: there is a system that's very real and very, you know, violent towards people.
Speaker:Evan: I mean, granted, we don't know how like wealthy Benji is. We see like- Yeah.
Speaker:Ellie: I think they're intentionally kind of vague about it. You know,
Speaker:Ellie: I liked that. I think it was smart of them to not be too specific.
Speaker:Ellie: I mean, they let the story and the acting, you know, speak for itself,
Speaker:Ellie: which is great. But I noticed that as far as,
Speaker:Ellie: Movies will throw around like towns, like, you know, affluent towns or restaurants
Speaker:Ellie: or brand names to try and like hint at, you know, someone's class.
Speaker:Ellie: But I think they were vague with that.
Speaker:Ellie: Like the grandmother eventually went into certain fashion, went into real estate,
Speaker:Ellie: was described as kind of a boss woman.
Speaker:Ellie: And they were having dinners at Murray Hill in New York.
Speaker:Ellie: And yet she also would wear like Target sandals, you know, so it's kind of like, I don't know.
Speaker:Ellie: But you do know at least that they, you know, they're not doing horribly.
Speaker:Ellie: Like they're not in dire straits.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, and David does seem to have a fairly nice apartment in the moment.
Speaker:Ellie: Oh, yeah, he's got like a brownstone. Oh, my God.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, he has a nice place. Clearly, he's done well for himself. But yeah, I mean.
Speaker:Ellie: Sorry, the irony. I loved that his job was digital ads.
Speaker:Ellie: That's like the linchpin of the entire beast of the global economy is digital ads.
Speaker:Evan: I know. I forgot to mention that when they're on the plane. He's like,
Speaker:Evan: oh, you mean those annoying banners that you see when you go on the internet?
Speaker:Ellie: It's like everyone hates those. yeah he's like i.
Speaker:Evan: Think it's also ironic in a way that jesse eisenberg who played like mark zuckerberg
Speaker:Evan: also when i think of just like the you know again like do something they could have had.
Speaker:Ellie: Him do.
Speaker:Evan: Anything but that's just like this most i don't know.
Speaker:Ellie: Generic internet.
Speaker:Evan: Thing you could do you know like he's not a.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah i mean i think i think all those exchanges really um
Speaker:Ellie: i see it particularly in david as a character i
Speaker:Ellie: it didn't really hit me on the first watch but the second watch for
Speaker:Ellie: some reason the sort of just like immigrant experience seemed more
Speaker:Ellie: at the front for me I'm like I'm first generation
Speaker:Ellie: my mom's from Ireland and um like I
Speaker:Ellie: think as far as first generation struggles obviously like I'm
Speaker:Ellie: also I'm from a white country
Speaker:Ellie: I don't have that element of being first generation I don't
Speaker:Ellie: have the religious element of being first generation but as far as just
Speaker:Ellie: like being from somewhere else and having a weird relationship with that history because
Speaker:Ellie: you're removed but also like not removed is
Speaker:Ellie: interesting and so David's experience he would have been second generation
Speaker:Ellie: because his grandparents were from there right um his
Speaker:Ellie: whole thing about not burdening people with that feeling and
Speaker:Ellie: like like benji how can he be from these amazing survivors but he suddenly like
Speaker:Ellie: and also the cycle that he described his grandmother in his grandmother's quote
Speaker:Ellie: that ended up hurting benji at that dinner which made him be really childish
Speaker:Ellie: she had a quote about like first generation immigrants work like menial jobs
Speaker:Ellie: and then you know second generation they go to good schools,
Speaker:Ellie: and third generation lives in their mother's basement and smokes pot,
Speaker:Ellie: which is what Benji is doing, so, and he,
Speaker:Ellie: didn't know that she had said something like that. So it really kind of hurt him.
Speaker:Ellie: But like that cycle has been a huge point of sort of study and artistic interest,
Speaker:Ellie: especially in the States, because we're such a culture of immigrants.
Speaker:Ellie: I mean, they mentioned in the park.
Speaker:Ellie: Interestingly, he's walking around a park, I think there was some Warsaw at
Speaker:Ellie: this point, and it's gorgeous.
Speaker:Ellie: And he's like, man, we could have like lived here, we could have grown up here
Speaker:Ellie: and been from here if it weren't for the war.
Speaker:Ellie: Can you imagine we think of ourselves and notably, he used the word as american
Speaker:Ellie: creations like such american creations and that's like
Speaker:Ellie: the essence of american culture is that everyone's from somewhere else but
Speaker:Ellie: that leaves a really complicated like relationship with identity
Speaker:Ellie: to reckon with yeah right so as far as generations go
Speaker:Ellie: it's like you're you come from these people like my mom didn't live
Speaker:Ellie: through a genocide but like you know irish culture is also complicated especially
Speaker:Ellie: it's as far as it's post-colonial for sure um she
Speaker:Ellie: moved over here in the 80s during a crazy
Speaker:Ellie: sort of recession in ireland and also when there was still very
Speaker:Ellie: rampant misogyny mostly because of the lack of separation church
Speaker:Ellie: and state so like she wanted to be a career woman and they
Speaker:Ellie: weren't gonna you know that wasn't really an option it
Speaker:Ellie: was like be a secretary a nurse a teacher or a wife back then
Speaker:Ellie: um so she moved over here and all that but as far
Speaker:Ellie: as like relationships go with history you
Speaker:Ellie: look at like what people like what people survived
Speaker:Ellie: my grandmother was like an orphan of the state she lost her
Speaker:Ellie: mother very young to tuberculosis like she had a crazy story
Speaker:Ellie: my grandmother um and you
Speaker:Ellie: feel kind of like and they go through all that and they survive all
Speaker:Ellie: that they become like badasses in their own way because they survived all that
Speaker:Ellie: because there's this grand narrative that comes with them like a history there
Speaker:Ellie: um and you worship them for that reason and then but you feel kind of guilty
Speaker:Ellie: because you're like well they they sacrificed all this for me and they work
Speaker:Ellie: so hard they survive so much so that I can have a nice life.
Speaker:Ellie: So the fact that I am not troubled is, you know, validation of their sacrifice.
Speaker:Ellie: But also the fact that I'm not troubled makes me feel guilty,
Speaker:Ellie: because look at what this generation had to go through.
Speaker:Ellie: So you're, you're trapped in this cycle, essentially, that comes from that distance,
Speaker:Ellie: but also closeness, that particular place that you exist in terms of your relationship
Speaker:Ellie: with struggle and where you come from.
Speaker:Ellie: And then you've also got the fact that, like maybe you're excelling in
Speaker:Ellie: these great ways compared to other family members but because you
Speaker:Ellie: don't feel like you're suffering in some ways or you're suffering is different
Speaker:Ellie: and it's easy like looks on paper easier but still mentally causes you a lot
Speaker:Ellie: of distress like you're just you're sitting there and you're evaluating and
Speaker:Ellie: you're weighing things and that I mean you see that sometimes even in America
Speaker:Ellie: with like not with just immigrant families you see that in general with like,
Speaker:Ellie: you know, worshipping leaders who came before, et cetera, like,
Speaker:Ellie: look at what they went through, and culturally trying to wash that over.
Speaker:Ellie: And that can cause people problems, because it's like, you got to know that
Speaker:Ellie: your heroes were human, too.
Speaker:Ellie: You know, and that's part of grief as well, you know, reckoning with the fact
Speaker:Ellie: that someone was an individual, and they had a whole life.
Speaker:Ellie: So it's just that their relationship died with you, they had a whole,
Speaker:Ellie: you know, life, like Benji, when he hears that thing that his grandmother said
Speaker:Ellie: that he never knew, you know.
Speaker:Evan: Well, and that actually leads me to one of the things that I was watching and
Speaker:Evan: reading some quotes and interviews from Jesse Eisenberg about how he had planned the script.
Speaker:Evan: He actually went on a trip to Poland, I think, in 2008.
Speaker:Evan: He also apparently just got a Polish dual citizenship to Poland recently for whatever.
Speaker:Evan: I mean, probably he gained connection to there. But one of the things I saw
Speaker:Evan: he said was that there was no one way or a good way to, you know.
Speaker:Evan: Depict or experience like any kind of pain.
Speaker:Evan: So like thinking about like the generational pain and suffering and things you're
Speaker:Evan: talking about and just how does one experience,
Speaker:Evan: you know, the when they go to the concentration camp later, because again,
Speaker:Evan: you have different generations, you have that older couple, you have the Marsha
Speaker:Evan: woman, you have this second, sorry, I guess it's the third generation,
Speaker:Evan: you know, cousins and then you have a loge who experienced his own genocide
Speaker:Evan: and so they all have this like different way to experience that pain i think
Speaker:Evan: what makes his like quote so interesting is that.
Speaker:Evan: As you're saying like there's you watch this there's lots of like questions and
Speaker:Evan: ways that you are thinking about but there's no answer
Speaker:Evan: because no one can really tell you like this is how you're supposed to
Speaker:Evan: you know understand grief and get over it or
Speaker:Evan: experience pain and you know they that moment
Speaker:Evan: when they go through the camp they don't there's no talking they're
Speaker:Evan: just them looking at scenes and it's meant as
Speaker:Evan: like the viewer to kind of understand it through your
Speaker:Evan: lens and then also understand how they're also then
Speaker:Evan: you know viewing and i thought that that whole like scene
Speaker:Evan: it's hard to depict those kind of scenes in
Speaker:Evan: film like i think uh what i also read was the
Speaker:Evan: producers didn't think they were going to be allowed to
Speaker:Evan: film at the concentration camp but then when they reached out to them and they
Speaker:Evan: read the script and it wasn't like a fighting scene or like people dressed as
Speaker:Evan: nazis it was simply sensational yeah exactly and they saw like oh this is actually
Speaker:Evan: how to process the pain respectful and they were all about they like approved
Speaker:Evan: it and let them do it all respectfully the.
Speaker:Ellie: Movie would they knew the movie would be like a public good as opposed to yeah.
Speaker:Evan: But just like watching all that too and then the only moment of like real suffering
Speaker:Evan: is i think in the bus on the way back benji just starts like breaking down and crying like and.
Speaker:Ellie: You don't even see him start i I love the editing of this film as well.
Speaker:Ellie: It's done so smart. It's so tight.
Speaker:Ellie: And they know exactly what they need to sell it and to hit the beat and to...
Speaker:Ellie: Get the story to tell what it wants to tell without overdoing it.
Speaker:Ellie: Cause they don't, it's not a whole scene.
Speaker:Ellie: It's just like a couple of seconds, even if Benji doubled over in a seat,
Speaker:Ellie: like really crying, but they don't show it.
Speaker:Ellie: Come on. They don't show anything surrounding it. Like afterwards,
Speaker:Ellie: they don't show you David consoling him or anything. They just like show you
Speaker:Ellie: the feeling and then they cut, they move on.
Speaker:Ellie: And I think, you know, that that's fair. It's like, what are you, what can,
Speaker:Ellie: what place does any of us have saying anything in the face of,
Speaker:Ellie: you know, having concentration camp you know that's i think
Speaker:Ellie: that that's great that the film didn't try to like narrate
Speaker:Ellie: too much over that it just put the encounter there it didn't
Speaker:Ellie: try to manipulate your perception too much or feed you something or feed you
Speaker:Ellie: a narrative it respectfully was just like we're gonna let the experience sit
Speaker:Ellie: here for a bit and it can sit with you and it'll sit with our character um but
Speaker:Ellie: we're not going to try to interpret it for you in sort of a kind of condescending
Speaker:Ellie: way um and then they just moved on.
Speaker:Evan: Which is exactly how like james the tour guide almost introduced it
Speaker:Evan: like there's lots of which i think we also there's two other scenes i want to
Speaker:Evan: talk about one is like the graveyard which i thought was interesting and then
Speaker:Evan: also the train which is earlier in the film but they're like all these um times
Speaker:Evan: where james the tour guide again you mentioned earlier he's british like why
Speaker:Evan: he's doing this and he specifically like.
Speaker:Ellie: A complete sort of stereotype of just a british academic.
Speaker:Evan: Sort of nerd and.
Speaker:Ellie: Like the best and i mean that the best way you know he ends up being a great
Speaker:Ellie: sort of multi-faceted guy.
Speaker:Evan: He does he's very interesting and like the scene in the graveyard which i thought was
Speaker:Evan: really uh like another moment where you're like really like you're
Speaker:Evan: almost like biting your nails like oh my god
Speaker:Evan: this is so awkward he like they're at a graveyard of the
Speaker:Evan: oldest uh you know oldest grave in poland and
Speaker:Evan: uh which is actually they were actually there was the whole thing and they he
Speaker:Evan: just was kind of like narrating while they're there like giving them facts and
Speaker:Evan: benji gets like really upset like we're in this graveyard can we just you know
Speaker:Evan: experience it and like you kind of think about it like he's actually kind of
Speaker:Evan: right like you do don't need to like,
Speaker:Evan: you at least have a moment where you can just kind of let things wash over you.
Speaker:Evan: And maybe that's also part of just the entire trip.
Speaker:Evan: And just kind of like a subtext is you have this person who's narrating everything
Speaker:Evan: throughout the whole time, but you're not really able to experience it in the same way.
Speaker:Evan: Like we also see everything online and on our phones, everything is narrated
Speaker:Evan: as opinions and articles when like, it's so hard anymore. So,
Speaker:Evan: you know, just experience.
Speaker:Ellie: I think it's on the train though, about like him, him talking
Speaker:Ellie: about numbing ourselves like we essentially like real raw
Speaker:Ellie: sort of unfiltered things we're not getting as much
Speaker:Ellie: or even remotely as much anymore because everything is filtered through
Speaker:Ellie: something or someone right it's filtered through short-form content it's you
Speaker:Ellie: know 60 seconds of a tiktok it's filtered through someone's bias in a media
Speaker:Ellie: article etc we're not there on the ground and rightly too it's also filtered
Speaker:Ellie: through like people's memories in their own perspectives because we're not getting
Speaker:Ellie: our ancestors experience even directly from them because you know we didn't live it.
Speaker:Ellie: But getting as close to it as you can by physically going to these places,
Speaker:Ellie: they're kind of suggesting that that can help.
Speaker:Ellie: But I think it's less about like, oh, you have to go do this heritage trek and
Speaker:Ellie: be physically in the place where the tragedy happened and more just like,
Speaker:Ellie: you need to be really mindful and present with it somehow,
Speaker:Ellie: even if that's just like learning about something or letting yourself think about it or process it.
Speaker:Ellie: Because you do see it's kind of anticlimactic, even when they go to their grandmother's house,
Speaker:Ellie: it's less about the actual journey of like physically being there and even on
Speaker:Ellie: the train after the meltdown you know mark the the man of the older couple that's
Speaker:Ellie: there says to him like i don't think you'll find a lot more a lot more suffering
Speaker:Ellie: back there he means about him storming off because it's like yeah the train is nice but it's.
Speaker:Ellie: Him leaving first class because he doesn't feel comfortable being there to go
Speaker:Ellie: sit in a nice train car, but not quite first class is not equivalent to,
Speaker:Ellie: as he had said, like getting a head bastion, you know, during the Holocaust.
Speaker:Ellie: And so like it trying to inflict extra suffering on yourself,
Speaker:Ellie: especially when you you're not able to do that, because living with stuff is
Speaker:Ellie: very nice is kind of a little bit pointless is sometimes physically trying to recreate it.
Speaker:Ellie: They're not saying you need to physically try to like be as miserable as someone.
Speaker:Ellie: I think it's I think the only real sort of truths that this film tries,
Speaker:Ellie: you know, asserts is like solid concrete, like platonic forms of the film,
Speaker:Ellie: as opposed to just sort of questions or musings, etc,
Speaker:Ellie: are just like, you need to like, give time and attention to your own feelings
Speaker:Ellie: and other people's feelings and just like try, which I know sounds really simple and common sense.
Speaker:Ellie: But sometimes at the end of the day, that's the only threads you can find in
Speaker:Ellie: very complicated issues is just that like, essentially, it's kind of just you
Speaker:Ellie: need to show up and do the work with yourself and with your history and with other people.
Speaker:Ellie: And people are in this film, they do that in a ton of different ways.
Speaker:Ellie: But, you know, they all are trying.
Speaker:Evan: So yeah oh in that car in that train car scene
Speaker:Evan: which you're talking about where benji sort of like flips off he's talking about like
Speaker:Evan: how we're privileged and pampered and i think the the line that
Speaker:Evan: like sticks you well as he says you
Speaker:Evan: know um i think mark the the husband
Speaker:Evan: of the other couple says like what are we supposed to do and he
Speaker:Evan: just says you know i don't know acknowledge it maybe try to feel
Speaker:Evan: it in some way and like that's a very again like
Speaker:Evan: it sounds like an obvious thing like feel it accept this like
Speaker:Evan: understand it rather than just you can accept that you're in first class but
Speaker:Evan: then also think like man we really are like privileged to be riding on this
Speaker:Evan: fancy trip and everything doesn't mean you have to do anything i think it's
Speaker:Evan: him storming off is almost just he kind of has to at that moment like he's yeah and he has he has.
Speaker:Ellie: The right sort of i mean obviously he has the right intentions he just sometimes
Speaker:Ellie: he expresses them in a way that's overboard to the point of becoming like.
Speaker:Ellie: Silly and counterproductive you know
Speaker:Ellie: like with the train um or it comes out at
Speaker:Ellie: the wrong moment I also I don't know I you know it's dangerous to
Speaker:Ellie: like try and you shouldn't be trying to diagnose anyone but yourself or
Speaker:Ellie: especially fictional characters but like Benji had a lot of like ADHD hallmarks
Speaker:Ellie: for me as a character he was very sort of fidgety he was either really attuned
Speaker:Ellie: to something or really not um like to me also it almost seemed like he was having
Speaker:Ellie: like an overstimulated meltdown.
Speaker:Ellie: I think a lot of people don't know about ADHD is like I'm ADHD.
Speaker:Ellie: So that's why I'm talking about it, just putting it out there.
Speaker:Ellie: A lot of people don't realize that like when we hyper fixate on things,
Speaker:Ellie: we can do that with like tasks and subjects. And that's great. That's a superpower.
Speaker:Ellie: But you can also get stuck in sort of like emotional states.
Speaker:Ellie: And if you're not managing your condition well enough, and if you're not,
Speaker:Ellie: you know, self aware enough, and you haven't developed those coping mechanisms,
Speaker:Ellie: you can't get them out of it can't get yourself out of them,
Speaker:Ellie: even though you're tortured,
Speaker:Ellie: torturedly self aware that like you're
Speaker:Ellie: just self-sabotaging right now and you look like a child you're like
Speaker:Ellie: stuck in that one emotional frame so he's sitting
Speaker:Ellie: there he's like rocking by the front of this of the um
Speaker:Ellie: train car and i can tell he probably just the thought occurred to him the minute
Speaker:Ellie: the tour guide said first class that he sat down and it just stewed and it stewed
Speaker:Ellie: and it stewed and he couldn't get out of it and so then he just had to fully
Speaker:Ellie: commit to get the release and have the meltdown because of course also they
Speaker:Ellie: end up back in first class remember later when he falls asleep.
Speaker:Ellie: And he points that out to Benji and Benji's like, ah, no, it's fine.
Speaker:Ellie: We worked for it by skipping their fare.
Speaker:Ellie: I'm like, he doesn't care anymore. You know, the tantrum has passed because
Speaker:Ellie: it's more just about like the sentiment of the thing.
Speaker:Evan: Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker:Ellie: Anyways.
Speaker:Evan: Well, this is, this is like kind of, this is like a big pivot,
Speaker:Evan: but just something because you mentioned it before.
Speaker:Ellie: No worries.
Speaker:Evan: And then I was also thinking about it after you referenced it.
Speaker:Evan: I was reading an article about it, is the music in this film, which if you...
Speaker:Evan: If you watch it there isn't any like really there are
Speaker:Evan: only a few scenes where it's kind of like montage-y with you
Speaker:Evan: know music in the background but all of the the music as
Speaker:Evan: you mentioned is classical and it's actually all uh
Speaker:Evan: chopin like which a is a polish-born jewish
Speaker:Evan: composer and so it's i
Speaker:Evan: think i also read that the apparently the producers really wanted
Speaker:Evan: him to put like modern music and he's like no i'm not doing that there's no
Speaker:Evan: reason to do that it should like this is the way it should be and they convinced
Speaker:Evan: him apparently at the credits if you notice is like a modern i don't remember
Speaker:Evan: what song it is now and he's like actually like regrets he's like i should have
Speaker:Evan: just not let them do that and just had more classical yeah.
Speaker:Ellie: And even the music that benji listens to in the shower it's 60s reggae it's
Speaker:Ellie: not like it's not current like um.
Speaker:Evan: Oh yeah no i thought it was great.
Speaker:Ellie: I when i realized i'd like i i think the only reason i even realized too is
Speaker:Ellie: i sadly just have a bit of a natural aversion to classical music i'm so adhd
Speaker:Ellie: that i want like lyrics or something to hook on to focus-wise.
Speaker:Ellie: So the fact that so much of it was playing, I mean, I liked it as a choice for
Speaker:Ellie: this movie. I loved it, but that's probably why I noticed.
Speaker:Ellie: And then when I figured out it was all Chopin, I was like, oh,
Speaker:Ellie: that's a really cool nod.
Speaker:Ellie: You know, obviously, he was Polish, had to go through a lot of unrest in his time.
Speaker:Ellie: He left Poland, I think, when he was like 20 or so, like a week before there was a big uprising,
Speaker:Ellie: the November 1830 uprising against the
Speaker:Ellie: Russian Empire so it's like it's like the fact that there's history all
Speaker:Ellie: around us you know even in the music that we might hear in an
Speaker:Ellie: elevator or in an airport um there's that
Speaker:Ellie: history embedded in and it's also like I
Speaker:Ellie: think obviously classical has for lack of a better word class connotations you
Speaker:Ellie: know we think true the wealthy are going to be listening to it or the pretentious
Speaker:Ellie: so the juxtaposition is really nice and gets you thinking it's like this history
Speaker:Ellie: of like struggle and triumph and all of that like a lot of artists back in the
Speaker:Ellie: day had led interesting lives um but But now it's become sort of a symbol of like,
Speaker:Ellie: being outdated out of touch or economically
Speaker:Ellie: wealthy or like inaccessible because it's pretentious or
Speaker:Ellie: something um classical music always makes me feel a little bit restrained
Speaker:Ellie: too like physically you know i'm like you want
Speaker:Ellie: to be in your best behavior and suddenly you're very aware of how loud
Speaker:Ellie: you're being it's like you're at a concert and like that feeling compared to
Speaker:Ellie: like benji just being all free moving and um david as a character just being
Speaker:Ellie: hunched into himself the whole movie is kind of funny to think about in terms
Speaker:Ellie: of like inhibitions and how benji follows is kind of without inhibition and
Speaker:Ellie: david is full of them you know yeah.
Speaker:Evan: It is it's one of those like i often think of i'm
Speaker:Evan: not like a big classical music person i'll like
Speaker:Evan: i'll can tolerate it in some you know some cases but
Speaker:Evan: again it's not my favorite but in some ways like it's
Speaker:Evan: the music in the film feels or
Speaker:Evan: felt very restrained whereas like the
Speaker:Evan: characters are not restrained in a sense like
Speaker:Evan: they're very especially benji you know he's very much constantly like moving
Speaker:Evan: around and he's having his little outbursts and all these things and it's it's
Speaker:Evan: like the very interesting opposites of them but it also feels very like old
Speaker:Evan: country you know like i'm going to poland i'm going to listen to you know country
Speaker:Evan: or not country classical music.
Speaker:Ellie: Except not the like the
Speaker:Ellie: really cliche version of old country which we kind
Speaker:Ellie: of hear in the piano bar that upsets benji a little bit with the like having
Speaker:Ellie: a gila is playing on the piano and then benji has a i mean there are so many
Speaker:Ellie: like lovely little nods to how complicated all these situations can be now in
Speaker:Ellie: modern living because benji has that lovely moment where he's he's like he tries
Speaker:Ellie: to call it anti-semitic and,
Speaker:Ellie: the james the tour guide who's leading is thinking like like looks at him he's
Speaker:Ellie: like well we come here all the time i know the owners are jewish um and it's
Speaker:Ellie: just funny he's trying to be like the art that benji is finding himself trying
Speaker:Ellie: to be the arbiter of like what is,
Speaker:Ellie: offensive in a place that like he's not technically really
Speaker:Ellie: like it just it brings up like who's allowed to decide what
Speaker:Ellie: like who owns what in culture who's allowed to decide what's an offensive stereotype
Speaker:Ellie: um so that was playing and then he goes and he plays tea for two you know later
Speaker:Ellie: yeah that so i think yeah it's like immigrant wise that was always interesting
Speaker:Ellie: first generation because like i i'm out in massachusetts right now which is you know.
Speaker:Ellie: And it's weird being so close to, you know, I'm a dual citizen, my mom is from there.
Speaker:Ellie: My whole extended family still
Speaker:Ellie: lives out there. So like, I have that just like, current Irish culture.
Speaker:Ellie: And then I have the Irish American culture that is, like, at minimum three generations
Speaker:Ellie: removed, it has become a culture kind of onto itself.
Speaker:Ellie: Trying to tell me what irish culture is and i'm like i was in
Speaker:Ellie: ireland last week and it's not this like it's just it's
Speaker:Ellie: it's funny that the shades of of culture
Speaker:Ellie: that that distance kind of creates and like the whole heritage tourism
Speaker:Ellie: industry that it has almost popped up of like let's follow
Speaker:Ellie: the footsteps of your ancestors or let's get in touch with culture you
Speaker:Ellie: see that with like birthright trips yeah um you see
Speaker:Ellie: that they were talking about doing a bit of a birthright in ireland and
Speaker:Ellie: i was like dear god please no and they ended up i don't think the program
Speaker:Ellie: started it's like we don't need more american college students
Speaker:Ellie: coming here and taking advantage of the drinking age um
Speaker:Ellie: but like it just it it brings up that
Speaker:Ellie: whole debate of like i don't like what am
Speaker:Ellie: i entitled to to make decisions about but the
Speaker:Ellie: music like the the real old school classic music would be
Speaker:Ellie: kind of like what they were playing there with the like the thick like the jaunty
Speaker:Ellie: like havenigila or whatever and instead they go no someone who has a history
Speaker:Ellie: in poland was a jesus composer but it's classical you know i think i i don't
Speaker:Ellie: know if you posted a quote or something it was about like a sophisticated film
Speaker:Ellie: let's see was it oh the outline that quote oh.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah so right so um eisenberg says.
Speaker:Ellie: Not be juvenile i figure that factored in you know that music choice is very
Speaker:Ellie: you know play refined yeah.
Speaker:Evan: So the the like the full thing was this was an article about the
Speaker:Evan: the the score and he says i wanted the tone of
Speaker:Evan: the movie to be very specifically to not be juvenile i
Speaker:Evan: wanted the tone to be a commentary on these characters falling
Speaker:Evan: into old patterns against the backdrop of historical trauma i wanted
Speaker:Evan: the movie to have a sophisticated traditional mature look and feel to
Speaker:Evan: it i think he nailed it like you think of like you look at the the like the
Speaker:Evan: poster for you like oh this is going to be like uh could be like raunchy you
Speaker:Evan: know like are they going to do something like terrible on this trip or you know
Speaker:Evan: i don't know what's going to happen but then like it just like completely grounds
Speaker:Evan: it and the music just kind of if it.
Speaker:Ellie: Had been like.
Speaker:Evan: Rap music playing or i don't know.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah it's the same with like the the trailer how
Speaker:Ellie: the trailer was so expertly done I think in general it's just really tight
Speaker:Ellie: really polished Eisenberg is like I
Speaker:Ellie: for some reason he just had not been on my radar we
Speaker:Ellie: kind of stayed off of it since social network I don't know there's
Speaker:Ellie: a lot of movies that are coming out and a lot of amazing talented actors but
Speaker:Ellie: um he kind of dropped off my radar now I'm obsessed with him I'm probably gonna
Speaker:Ellie: go watch a bunch of his work because um as far as the writing goes I'm just
Speaker:Ellie: I love how tight it was that's the problem with a lot of writing now is That's
Speaker:Ellie: how people overwrite or they include unnecessary components just to make it
Speaker:Ellie: sellable or commercial, etc.
Speaker:Ellie: Everything gets so muddy and this film like new this film and by this film I
Speaker:Ellie: mean Eisenberg because he wrote it directed it.
Speaker:Ellie: Knew exactly what he wanted it to be like it was very sure
Speaker:Ellie: of itself which is important in making any work it just needs
Speaker:Ellie: to be certain of its vision even if you don't like the
Speaker:Ellie: vision it needs to be certain of its vision to be you know
Speaker:Ellie: coherent and he knew he no superfluous elements
Speaker:Ellie: everything was really carefully chosen and he kept everything really tight I
Speaker:Ellie: mean that could have easily been like someone else did this I could see a bunch
Speaker:Ellie: of scenes with like the wife at home or face time calls with her or more exploration
Speaker:Ellie: of the other group members but no he seemed to know exactly how much of something
Speaker:Ellie: he needed to include that was peak and then anything else would be unnecessary.
Speaker:Ellie: Which is a great skill in writing and honestly i'm surprised too because eisenberg
Speaker:Ellie: he's the type of guy with his history in hollywood you could probably get away
Speaker:Ellie: with writing something that wasn't you know as technically as amazing but he's
Speaker:Ellie: like no i'm gonna make it technically amazing because i know what a film should
Speaker:Ellie: be um yeah so big fan i really liked it and the music played into that.
Speaker:Evan: What one thing i saw was he said that he uh has like written plays before i
Speaker:Evan: don't know how many if any of them have come out i was looking at his like credits
Speaker:Evan: on wikipedia and looks like he does have a bunch of plays he's been in i can't
Speaker:Evan: tell if how many of these he actually was the the writer of but it very like
Speaker:Evan: i almost could see this film like as a play
Speaker:Evan: in a way like i almost could see it having been like a three or four different
Speaker:Evan: scenes and like almost just been them with a couple of side characters and i think also.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah i could see it even just being staged at like the same table
Speaker:Ellie: yeah most of it true bench you know you've got what park scenes you're at museums
Speaker:Ellie: you're at hotels you're at like everything is kind of in a liminal trans trans
Speaker:Ellie: space you know um you're in terminals that's another thing too it's a film about
Speaker:Ellie: like grief and culture and heritage and there are some lovely shots of warsaw
Speaker:Ellie: and the places that they go.
Speaker:Ellie: But like, like Benji brought up in the next scene that you want to discuss,
Speaker:Ellie: there wasn't a lot of like actual Poland in it, it didn't feel very super Polish,
Speaker:Ellie: like it was very Polish, but also not because the shots were kind of a little
Speaker:Ellie: bit impersonal of the city.
Speaker:Ellie: And then whenever they were interacting, we only really see them out in tourist places.
Speaker:Ellie: Places a handful of times. And the rest of the time, it's stuff that's very kind of nondescript.
Speaker:Ellie: It's something that everyone would know a train, you know, an airport,
Speaker:Ellie: a terminal in the back of a car in a hotel room.
Speaker:Ellie: Like, I love that scene after they get high, they're both just lying,
Speaker:Ellie: like slumped on the beds, eating snacks.
Speaker:Ellie: And that the bad music from the hotel TV screensaver is playing.
Speaker:Evan: It's like, it's such an intimate.
Speaker:Ellie: Like relatable moment. And that's really smart, too, because they're including
Speaker:Ellie: all these elements that keep it like, keep its appeal very wide.
Speaker:Ellie: You know, it's not just a movie about the Holocaust or about the Jewish experience.
Speaker:Ellie: It's a movie about dealing with any form of like trauma, grief or whatever,
Speaker:Ellie: or just being a person and having relationships, you know, who hasn't been in
Speaker:Ellie: a situation where, you know, that stupid hotel screensaver is going.
Speaker:Ellie: So the fact that they didn't make it like very specifically Polish,
Speaker:Ellie: I can see there being drawbacks to that.
Speaker:Ellie: Maybe if you have the heritage or ancestry or you're more watching the film
Speaker:Ellie: because you really wanted something about the Jewish experience,
Speaker:Ellie: I can see that being a drawback. but i thought it was great.
Speaker:Evan: No i don't i don't think that detracted from it at all actually i think it actually
Speaker:Evan: almost enhanced it because the one scene you really have i guess there's a couple
Speaker:Evan: like the even the scene where they go to the mother's like old house like it
Speaker:Evan: doesn't even feel like distinctly polish it's only the scene when they go to
Speaker:Evan: the concentration camp yeah.
Speaker:Ellie: There's like a bicycle and laundry out that could be anywhere.
Speaker:Evan: Exactly yeah it could have just been any it could be any you know real
Speaker:Evan: eastern european you know country or or
Speaker:Evan: whatever but then yeah the concentration camp and that is like the
Speaker:Evan: distinctly you know like obviously there's other locations in other places in
Speaker:Evan: czech republic and germany and other and others but that's very distinctly a
Speaker:Evan: thing that would fit in here and i think that like they treated it really well
Speaker:Evan: you know in the in the film like kind of also that not being sort of like that
Speaker:Evan: also could have easily been,
Speaker:Evan: the last place they go or it could have been just towards the end,
Speaker:Evan: but then they kind of took you back to when they go to the house and kind of
Speaker:Evan: give you that sort of happy note.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: And then they go back home.
Speaker:Ellie: I mean, yeah, it's a bit jarring. It could have been more jarring,
Speaker:Ellie: but it's a bit jarring because they do the concentration camp visit and then
Speaker:Ellie: they come back to the hotel and immediately it's like, we have to say goodbye
Speaker:Ellie: to Benji and the tour group goes right off, you know.
Speaker:Ellie: There's a little bit of a process conversation, obviously. I think James asks
Speaker:Ellie: how everyone's feeling,
Speaker:Ellie: et cetera, but they do their like hugs and goodbyes then and then the next day
Speaker:Ellie: it's grandmother's house and then they're headed home it's kind of can't be
Speaker:Ellie: very fast it just reminded me of how fast travel is you know like you don't
Speaker:Ellie: often get to spend a proper amount of time in a place.
Speaker:Evan: So one of the like one of the last sort of questions that i was thinking of
Speaker:Evan: when i watched it it was like after i watched the film i sort of was like sinking
Speaker:Evan: like taking it all in and taking some notes as i was watching but one of the
Speaker:Evan: things and then then after maybe after this one if there's anything that I that
Speaker:Evan: you missed that you wanted to talk about but I was thinking like does anyone,
Speaker:Evan: actually change like in the context of this film and
Speaker:Evan: maybe like by extension you know experiencing some
Speaker:Evan: kind of trip or you know post-trauma or
Speaker:Evan: something like that and like it doesn't feel like either character changes
Speaker:Evan: like you said like sort of the cyclical nature the very opening shot of Benji
Speaker:Evan: at the sitting at the chair in the airport and then the very last scene with
Speaker:Evan: he's at the airport and it's just uh you like you don't feel like he's actually
Speaker:Evan: changed at all like has this experience actually done anything to him yeah or
Speaker:Evan: is it that you're like masking hard.
Speaker:Ellie: Too because it's so at that moment also so quiet
Speaker:Ellie: you know i think yeah i mean it's difficult it's kind of a knife in the gut
Speaker:Ellie: when you get back and benji turns down the dinner offer from david because this
Speaker:Ellie: whole movie's been about essentially grief yeah but i'd argue their relationship
Speaker:Ellie: is so central and there's this element of like loneliness that's dripping off of Benji,
Speaker:Ellie: especially in his effort to like charm everyone.
Speaker:Ellie: Instinctual like automatic charming of people is really an effort
Speaker:Ellie: to get attention and he really misses that attention from
Speaker:Ellie: david in particular and he brings it up in kind of passive aggressive ways
Speaker:Ellie: a couple times through the film um and
Speaker:Ellie: then he takes a moment to genuinely thank him although this it's right
Speaker:Ellie: before he says let's go smoke a joint but it's like hey i see
Speaker:Ellie: you i see the time that you gave and i know it was really hard to
Speaker:Ellie: get away from your children and i realize you're doing it because you know how
Speaker:Ellie: much this means to me so like thank you i appreciate you he's very genuine in
Speaker:Ellie: his thanks um it's just time that he wants to spend he mentions a bit about
Speaker:Ellie: the bench too they used to roam around new york at night and he you know david
Speaker:Ellie: would always fall asleep first they try to stay up all night he'd fall asleep
Speaker:Ellie: first on a chinatown bench not comfortable,
Speaker:Ellie: um and you know benji was like oh no you know it
Speaker:Ellie: wasn't a big deal that you fell asleep first like you had a wife and
Speaker:Ellie: a job and like you'd been up all day doing like
Speaker:Ellie: real people stuff um you know I was just glad
Speaker:Ellie: that you were there with me like then it was the
Speaker:Ellie: time and attention that he was cherishing you know so
Speaker:Ellie: like as far as Benji goes I was
Speaker:Ellie: expecting him to just I was expecting this to be a symbol of like oh that relationship
Speaker:Ellie: is healed and you know now he's gonna have go have dinner at um they're gonna
Speaker:Ellie: start spending more time together and that's gonna help but Benji says no I'm
Speaker:Ellie: gonna hang out here instead it's like you've been complaining the whole film
Speaker:Ellie: that you guys are not spending time together um so I think as far as change
Speaker:Ellie: goes That was hard, but I also, I think.
Speaker:Ellie: I think it'd be too easy if they just, if they came out of this trip and it
Speaker:Ellie: seemed like, you know, he was better or healed or anyone was magically healed.
Speaker:Ellie: I think, again, this film just asks a lot of questions.
Speaker:Ellie: And the only truth that really comes out of it is just, you just have to show up and do the work.
Speaker:Ellie: So I, although it seems like no one really changed in a very concrete way,
Speaker:Ellie: like I walked out of it and like this film wasn't a downer to me, which is great.
Speaker:Ellie: I mean, it's a film about the Holocaust, but when I walked out of this film, I felt like,
Speaker:Ellie: you know, and it's full of characters who are really kind of in their own way,
Speaker:Ellie: very sort of pessimistic in the, you know, the feelings about the world that
Speaker:Ellie: they're expressing, but somehow the tone, everything came together for I walked
Speaker:Ellie: out of it still feeling kind of optimistic.
Speaker:Ellie: I think it's just this idea that like, you know, we're all gonna face a lot
Speaker:Ellie: of difficulty right now.
Speaker:Ellie: Or just as human beings, now and going forward, and the only way to deal with
Speaker:Ellie: it is to just sort of come together and try.
Speaker:Ellie: I mean, because they tried to come together here, they tried to come together
Speaker:Ellie: to process their feelings and come with their community.
Speaker:Ellie: And it wasn't perfect you know it's not like benji walked away
Speaker:Ellie: suddenly with a massive will to live but you know
Speaker:Ellie: they tried and i think i walked away from it
Speaker:Ellie: thinking well they'll keep trying you know maybe in a year after benji's helped
Speaker:Ellie: i don't know remodel some more roofs with adobe like they'll have dinner again
Speaker:Ellie: and it'll eventually they'll find their rhythm um but yeah so i don't know i
Speaker:Ellie: still walked out of the film feeling hopeful even though you're right nothing
Speaker:Ellie: necessarily like changes changes.
Speaker:Ellie: Oh, although we see with James, James got his first criticism of the tour and
Speaker:Ellie: he thanked Benji for critiquing him and said, like, hey, you've changed my process.
Speaker:Ellie: So James got some change, I guess, from the dysfunction.
Speaker:Evan: That's true. But yeah, to that point, I don't feel like the fact, just because,
Speaker:Evan: Not every film has to have the growth or resolution.
Speaker:Evan: If anything, it's almost boring if that happens. And so I think I.
Speaker:Ellie: Also- It's a lot more like- It's a lot nicer to experience and technically harder
Speaker:Ellie: to do for a filmmaker for you to come out of a film and still feel really satisfied and happy.
Speaker:Ellie: Well, not necessarily happy, but passionate and invigorated by your viewing
Speaker:Ellie: experience without that resolution.
Speaker:Evan: Exactly, yeah.
Speaker:Ellie: Or basically, it's hard to pull off not providing a concrete sense of resolution
Speaker:Ellie: in a lot of films because we're so wired to watch films that way.
Speaker:Ellie: But this film managed to do it.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, I would agree with that. I think overall, you know, for me,
Speaker:Evan: this was like in my like near the top of my 2024 films, you know, that I watched.
Speaker:Evan: But yeah, I mean, was there anything that we missed or that you had left on?
Speaker:Evan: And I think I hit all the little bits of stuff.
Speaker:Evan: I was looking at my notes.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah, I think that thing was involved my major points as well.
Speaker:Evan: Oh, I will say the one thing that made me laugh out loud, even the third time
Speaker:Evan: that I saw it, was when they sneak into the one building near the end and he
Speaker:Evan: walks back and he just says, Blork.
Speaker:Evan: And I just was, I lost it.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah, they get access to
Speaker:Ellie: a pot smoking location because they pretend to be an employee somewhere
Speaker:Ellie: like so just with his hat and
Speaker:Ellie: his touristy hat and his tie-dye sweatshirt
Speaker:Ellie: they just walk in and it
Speaker:Ellie: ends up being a really nice building it's got that you know neon sign
Speaker:Ellie: on it they can see the um concentration camp
Speaker:Ellie: from up there yeah yeah that but yeah no that that is really fun
Speaker:Ellie: it's funny we need a new word for comedies really essentially for
Speaker:Ellie: it to that type of comedy essentially things that like aren't comedies but
Speaker:Ellie: happen to have humor like 80% of
Speaker:Ellie: films now 90% of films because like I'm like if someone were asking me for comedy
Speaker:Ellie: this wouldn't be the first one I'd name there's so much awesome humor in it
Speaker:Ellie: but like that's not the genre or mode that they're going for so it's always
Speaker:Ellie: funny when you google something and the first thing that comes up is it's a comedy yeah buddy road.
Speaker:Evan: Comedy drama just.
Speaker:Ellie: Has one joke in it,
Speaker:Ellie: yeah but but it also does.
Speaker:Evan: Like it also yeah i mean it's those.
Speaker:Ellie: There were a lot of moments for me yeah yeah i mean he was
Speaker:Ellie: so inconspicuous about his like package of drugs too um
Speaker:Ellie: you know he's walking around with the joint and stuff and like i
Speaker:Ellie: think those moments where they have sort of like childish fun together in an
Speaker:Ellie: attempt to recreate the closeness that they once had are all really cute and
Speaker:Ellie: endearing too like they're running up the stairs giggling to the roof and and
Speaker:Ellie: all that and they're like trying to evade the conductor on the train it's it's
Speaker:Ellie: all very like giddy boys in trouble it's funny yeah.
Speaker:Evan: No i i agree with that and um yeah i
Speaker:Evan: mean i think that's all there is on
Speaker:Evan: a real pain um sometimes i like to leave like even though sometimes it just
Speaker:Evan: happens organically but i'm curious we talked to the beginning like movies you're
Speaker:Evan: excited about seeing i'm curious if there's well one would you recommend to
Speaker:Evan: people to watch this film and then if even if you would do you have any like
Speaker:Evan: are there any films you've seen recently that you.
Speaker:Ellie: Would recommend to uh.
Speaker:Evan: To the listeners.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah so of course this film was great um
Speaker:Ellie: everyone raved about it it was awesome i think even
Speaker:Ellie: if you feel like you don't have very accessible
Speaker:Ellie: relatable points of like grief or intergenerational trauma
Speaker:Ellie: you will watch this film and then you will like think of one um so
Speaker:Ellie: you'll definitely it'll have an impact also even
Speaker:Ellie: if you're not watching it for the feelings watch for the artistry it's such
Speaker:Ellie: a like well done edited written film culkins and eisenberg's performances both
Speaker:Ellie: amazing um and also it's got such a short runtime how could you not films are
Speaker:Ellie: really that short anymore yeah so it's under 90 minutes i think yeah.
Speaker:Evan: I think it's it was like 87 minutes which is crazy.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah exactly so there you go um so definitely and then i'm trying to think films
Speaker:Ellie: recently oh i watched um i was on a plane recently i watched saturday night that film,
Speaker:Ellie: about the so-called night before the opening night of SNL.
Speaker:Ellie: It's really just a pastiche of like a lot of...
Speaker:Ellie: Dramatic moments that they they stage all in one night
Speaker:Ellie: um but yeah it was really good it was really interesting um it
Speaker:Ellie: was well written um i love
Speaker:Ellie: the 70s so the everyone being in period costume was
Speaker:Ellie: interesting chevy chase's character was hilarious um in
Speaker:Ellie: a non-encouraging way i'll say he's hilarious because that kind of behavior
Speaker:Ellie: but anyways that that was great and then i think
Speaker:Ellie: i'm trying to think of other ones um for p
Speaker:Ellie: for those who in particular who liked a real pain though so if
Speaker:Ellie: you watch this movie and you liked it i would
Speaker:Ellie: say thematically if you
Speaker:Ellie: watch like the daniels two films so swiss army
Speaker:Ellie: man and everything everywhere all at once those can kind of hit on the feelings
Speaker:Ellie: we're getting at like if you look at intergenerational drama and immigration
Speaker:Ellie: and economics everything everywhere all at once and swiss army man is a great
Speaker:Ellie: another like we'll say buddy who's on film because, you know,
Speaker:Ellie: it's two amazing actors.
Speaker:Ellie: It's Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe also kind of exploring like human connection and how to feel.
Speaker:Ellie: Like worthy and valuable and how to feel any sense of purpose and creativity
Speaker:Ellie: and how you can find that in art and sort of the economics of things and nature and all.
Speaker:Ellie: So, but yeah, as far as exploration of themes go, those are two recommendations.
Speaker:Ellie: Only lovers left alive is another great one that has to deal sort of with capitalism in this way.
Speaker:Ellie: I was thinking like history, it's like, okay, how do we deal with living when
Speaker:Ellie: we don't have to worry about time?
Speaker:Ellie: That's another sort of like good, like two homer, like a,
Speaker:Ellie: like a helmed by a strong pair tilda swinton and um tom hiddleston are in that
Speaker:Ellie: but yeah those would be my recommendations for like similar equally as like meaty films.
Speaker:Evan: It's funny i it's funny oftentimes when i think about like recommendations i
Speaker:Evan: never consider it in the way you did which is much more logical of like oh if
Speaker:Evan: you like this film you know what film would you like and i never uh consider
Speaker:Evan: but that makes for a sense it's.
Speaker:Ellie: Kind of easy it's almost like good sheet it's like you're you're um kind of
Speaker:Ellie: covering your own but you know because it's like you know that you know that
Speaker:Ellie: if someone's listened this far they're probably going to like.
Speaker:Evan: No that makes that makes perfect sense and like only lovers left alive i watched
Speaker:Evan: that um i don't know like maybe two years ago for the first time i hadn't seen
Speaker:Evan: like i went through like i'm a huge like vampire you know film fan and i went through like that's.
Speaker:Ellie: How i think that's how i came to it is I was on like a street.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, that's exact. I watched like 20 or 30 in like a, I don't know,
Speaker:Evan: like a couple of months. And that was one of the ones I hit.
Speaker:Evan: I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe I hadn't seen it.
Speaker:Evan: And I would say it is a very, like a similar type of, of pain of like people
Speaker:Evan: also in this case, like they're live in different locations and they like,
Speaker:Evan: you know, trying to meet again.
Speaker:Evan: And, uh, yeah, like the, the, the other one that I was going to recommend that's
Speaker:Evan: similar to this and now i can't remember what it is uh i can't remember now it's more oh um um,
Speaker:Evan: Well, I can't think of what it is. I was thinking one that's like similar to
Speaker:Evan: this film, now that I was thinking about it, but it doesn't fall.
Speaker:Evan: I mean, I guess this is adjacent to it, not in the same way as The Brutalist,
Speaker:Evan: which is nominated for a bunch of awards. It's not really the same.
Speaker:Ellie: I still need to watch that. It's been so high up on my list.
Speaker:Ellie: I'm just like, mentally I have to be prepared.
Speaker:Ellie: You know, you're like, I need to find the time to like really zone in.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, it's definitely a, if you see it in the theater, the nice thing is that
Speaker:Evan: you do get a intermission, which like you don't get anymore in film,
Speaker:Evan: but like it's needed because it's a runtime of two hours, 15 minutes.
Speaker:Evan: So it's three hours, 30, what is that, two hours, a long time.
Speaker:Evan: But it's definitely worth watching, you know, at some point I would recommend it.
Speaker:Evan: It's not uh you know um it's very much a different film you know definitely
Speaker:Evan: not at all funny for the most part like there's a few like sprinkled in things
Speaker:Evan: but definitely uh you know a deeper uh drama to watch but i would say if anyone
Speaker:Evan: out there is interested in like hitting more of the,
Speaker:Evan: nominated films or just wants to you know i would say check that one out.
Speaker:Ellie: Yeah, super high on my list. But yeah, like you said, I just,
Speaker:Ellie: I have to find a night where I'm in the right headspace and my attention's just
Speaker:Ellie: right and I can like just curl up somewhere for that long.
Speaker:Evan: No, it's, I almost like if you were to watch it at home.
Speaker:Ellie: I can tell from the trailer too that you're right though. It would touch on
Speaker:Ellie: sort of similar questions that are raised, but obviously like you said,
Speaker:Ellie: a very different approach and style in film.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, and it covers like a long period of time. It's like the number of years
Speaker:Evan: it goes from the 1940s all the way until the 1980s.
Speaker:Evan: So it covers a vast, you know, or actually even later than that.
Speaker:Evan: But that's kind of like the predominant sections. And it's like broken down
Speaker:Evan: in parts. And then there's an epilogue. Anyway, I don't want to talk as long as that film.
Speaker:Ellie: No worries.
Speaker:Evan: But Ellie, I really appreciate you coming on and talking about A Real Pain. Yeah, of course.
Speaker:Ellie: I've had a great time.
Speaker:Evan: It's been a pleasure to have you. And then again, people can find you at ET
Speaker:Evan: Lions on various social media platforms.
Speaker:Evan: And they'll be able to link to you in the show notes. But yeah, anything?
Speaker:Ellie: No, just thank you so much for having me. Hopefully it wasn't a pain.
Speaker:Evan: Of course. I'm glad we could talk about this one. when I saw this one this is
Speaker:Evan: definitely there aren't that many times nowadays where I see a film like a new
Speaker:Evan: film I want to watch it again soon and this is one of those times actually.
Speaker:Ellie: I'm the same, that's a good indicator because it's very rare that that happens
Speaker:Ellie: it really stuck with you, you kept thinking about it and you wanted to watch
Speaker:Ellie: it again to dive in even more,
Speaker:Ellie: it just set your brain off in that way that doesn't always happen anymore where
Speaker:Ellie: we're so inundated with films that sometimes it can be hard to stand out in
Speaker:Ellie: that way. But it had the same effect on me.
Speaker:Evan: Excellent. Well, yeah, so everyone listening can continue listening wherever
Speaker:Evan: you are now and like and subscribe.
Speaker:Evan: And we'll catch you next time on Left of the Projector.
