A Real Pain | The Screenplay Lab

Jesse Eisenberg's Deeply Human Look at Mental Health

By Jeff Barker

I’m Jeff Barker. I’m a screenwriter, and I love breaking down screenplays.

This Week: A Real Pain by Jesse Eisenberg

This week, we’re looking at another Academy Award-nominated screenplay: Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain. It’s a script that is both funny and heartbreaking, exploring self-discovery through the pain of grief.

What makes this screenplay stand out is its smart, fair, and deeply human look at mental health - a topic that Eisenberg has tackled with nuance and authenticity.

---

Academy Award Nominations

• Best Original Screenplay

• Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin

  ---

About the Author: Jesse Eisenberg

Many people know Jesse Eisenberg as an Academy Award-nominated actor for his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network. He’s made a name for himself playing brainy, troubled characters, often bringing an intellectual quirkiness to his performances.

Eisenberg grew up in New Jersey, raised by a mother who was a performer and artist and a father who was a taxi driver. But even before his acting career took off, his first love was writing.

He started writing screenplays as a teenager and was taken seriously early on, securing an agent at a young age. His influences were eclectic.

He idolized Adam Sandler and was obsessed with comedy writing.

He was also drawn to playwriting and wrote a play about Woody Allen, which famously earned him a cease and desist letter. (Ironically, he later worked on two of Woody Allen’s films.

In 2022, Eisenberg made his feature directorial debut with When You Finish Saving the World, a film exploring a complex mother-son relationship. It established his reputation as someone who can craft deeply layered interpersonal dynamics and emotional themes.

Eisenberg has described himself as a character-driven writer, and that’s especially evident in A Real Pain.

---

The Development of A Real Pain

This film started as a 2017 short story titled “Mongolia”, about two college friends traveling abroad. Eisenberg revealed on the Scriptnotes podcast with John August that he struggled with the second act - until he saw a pop-up ad for a tour of Auschwitz. Suddenly, everything clicked.

Initially, the two main characters were brothers, but Eisenberg wanted to create more emotional distance between them. Instead, he made them cousins, allowing for familial tension without the built-in obligation of sibling relationships.

Casting was crucial. Eisenberg wrote the role of Benji with Kieran Culkin in mind, but Culkin was hesitant because he is not Jewish. It was producer Emma Stone who convinced him to take the part.

---

How it Became a Film

Production Companies:

• Rego Park – Jesse Eisenberg’s company

• Topic Studios – Known for serious, thought-provoking projects

• Fruit Tree – Founded by Emma Stone, Dave McCary, and Ali Herting

• Extreme Emotions – A Polish company with recent acclaim (The Zone of Interest, 2023)

Distributor: Searchlight Pictures

Filming: Shot in Poland over two months with a budget of $3 million

Premiere: Sundance Film Festival 2024 (Best Screenplay)

---

Logline:

Mismatched cousins reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother, but their old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.

My go at it:
A journey to honor their grandmother’s legacy turns into an emotional battleground as two cousins clash over grief, identity, and the weight of history.

---

The Title’s Many Meanings

Great titles hold layers of meaning, and A Real Pain is no exception.

1. The Surface Meaning – The most immediate takeaway from the title and poster: Benji is a “real pain” to be around. He’s charming and full of love, but also difficult, unpredictable, and emotionally exhausting.

2. Emotional Pain – The film delves into grief, family relationships, and deep emotional trauma, especially in how Benji and Dave navigate the loss of their grandmother.

3. Generational or Historical Pain – The cousins travel through Poland, where two generations ago, their family suffered unimaginable atrocities during the Holocaust. Their grandmother survived “through a thousand miracles.”

4. Existential Pain – At the deepest level, A Real Pain explores the weight of existence itself. As they confront their family’s history, both Benji and Dave begin questioning life’s meaning when faced with the horrors of the past.

This is the third week in a row that I’ve found four deep layers of meaning in our screenplay’s title. It’s a great reminder that when working on my own projects, I need to dig deeper into the significance of my titles.

---

Directions on the Page

Eisenberg uses direction on the page in his screenplay.

• Right from Page 1, we get "We zoom," "We get," "We arrive."

• He uses variations of “we see,” “move to,” “pan,” “zoom,” “push” a total of 25 times throughout the script.

Eisenberg’s formatting choices reinforce his voice. Every quirk - whether it’s the em-dashes, the double spacing, or the way he manages time within scenes - is intentional. The script reads like Eisenberg talks, which makes it uniquely his.

---

Mental Health: The Special Sauce of This Script

Before we dive deeper into the writing itself, I want to highlight what, in my opinion, makes this screenplay worthy of an Oscar nomination: its honest and accurate portrayal of mental health.

Before becoming a full-time writer, I spent over a decade in psychiatry as a medical provider. I’ve seen a lot of movies get mental health wrong. Even when the intentions are good, the execution often does more harm than good.

• Schizophrenia? Almost always inaccurately portrayed.

• Bipolar disorder? Usually simplified beyond recognition.

• Dissociative Identity Disorder? Don’t even get me started.

But A Real Pain gets it right.

As a reader of this screenplay or a viewer of this film, you don’t have to understand textbook psychology to know the characters ring true. And truth is what makes us fall in love with a story. This happened last year with the film: Past Lives,

Benji displays authentic cluster B personality traits. These are cemented ways of identifying with the self and the world based on a history of trauma, abuse, and neglect. They are predictable, obvious, and apparent.

Rapidly shifting and intense mood based on circumstance

We see Benji quickly flipping his mood, not based on some overarching neurochemical response but because of what is happening around him and a deep-seated fear of abandonment.

Fragmented identity

This is the Chameleon effect. Benji had developed a common coping mechanism of being highly skilled at taking on different personas. In other words, he can be almost any person in any setting. This is how he is able to be so charming and engaging. This is a valuable interpersonal skill but it often leads the person into emptiness because they lose touch with a core identity.

This is why Benji loves the airport. He gets to experience what he believes is the best version of himself by interacting with strangers and taking on the temporary persona of who he thinks they want him to be.

Impulsivity

Cluster B traits include broad impulsiveness. This differs from narrow impulsivity, like what we see in ADHD. Broad impulsiveness is understanding the consequences but doing them anyway.

This often leads to self-damaging behaviors. We see this when Benji sneaks them onto the roof of a random hotel, when he coordinates the group into an irreverent display at the statues, when he plays in the river, when he berates the tour guide, and when he goes off on the train.

Jesse Eisenberg knew what he was doing when he wrote this script. He has given us one of those rare moments when we identify with something in literature or film that we know to be true in real life from our own interactions, but we didn’t know we knew it to be true.

---

The Writing: Jesse Eisenberg’s Minimalist Style

Jesse Eisenberg writes with a lean, sparse style, favoring clarity over flourish. He doesn’t indulge in flowery prose, nor does he write in the fragmented, punchy phrasing often associated with modern screenwriting. Instead, he writes in complete sentences - direct, efficient, and emotionally restrained.

His strength lies in character development, dialogue, and psychology.

Because the writing is so minimalist, Eisenberg often tells us exactly what the characters are feeling or what we should focus on in a scene.

Some might argue that since Eisenberg is both the writer and director, he doesn’t need to include everything in the script. But ironically, most writer-directors tend to be more descriptive, ensuring that everyone involved sees their vision clearly from the start.

A great example of Eisenberg’s stripped-down writing style is found on Page 79, after the visit to the concentration camp. Here are some action lines:

• “The group walks toward the entrance.”

• “The group enters the lobby.”

• “The group gathers around James in the lobby.”

• “The group nods, understanding.”

There’s no extra emotion, no flowery description, no forced poignancy - just stark, observational writing, reflecting the quiet, heavy aftermath of the scene.

---

Minimal Character Descriptions

Eisenberg gives very little physical description for his characters – mostly none at all.

• Benji (Page 1): “This is BENJI KAPLAN. He has an absent look on his face that borders on melancholy.”

• David (Page 1): “In a verdant Brooklyn Heights neighborhood, DAVID hustles down the street.”

That’s it.

Even the fact that they are cousins is mentioned subtly. If you didn’t already know from the premise, you might assume they were friends or estranged brothers until this brief line on Page 4:

“From behind, we see the two cousins walking toward security—”

---

Minimal Scene Description

His descriptions of settings are equally restrained:

• Hotel (Page 12): “They arrive at an upscale chain hotel.”

• Grandmother’s house, the pinnacle of their journey (Page 92): “They approach a little alley that looks like it hasn’t changed in a hundred years.”/“David points to a little address above a door – 25.”

• Train station (Page 42): “The group walks through the train station.”

• Warsaw at night from the hotel rooftop (Page 38): “The boys are at the edge of the roof, which overlooks Warsaw. It’s gorgeous.”

---

Comedy on the Page

Despite its heavy themes, A Real Pain has a sharp comedic edge. Eisenberg’s love for SNL and Adam Sandler is evident in his dialogue - especially in small, everyday moments.

I recommend reading these two interactions from the plane:

• Page 7: A discussion about which seat to take.

• Page 9: A dry, absurd exchange about the seatbelt demonstration.

The humor is subtle and organic, emerging from the characters rather than feeling forced. Given Sandler’s recent turn toward smart, character-driven comedic dramas, Eisenberg could easily write for him now - minus the upcoming Happy Gilmore 2.

---

Ad-Libbing & Giving Actors Freedom

Eisenberg often calls for ad-libbing, allowing the actors to improvise and make scenes feel natural.

• Page 80: “The group ad-libs goodbyes to Benji and David.”

There are multiple moments like this throughout the script, showing his trust in actors to bring authenticity to the dialogue.

One notable example is Culkin’s improvisation of the line:

• “You’re walking alone. What are you, a loser or something?”

This isn’t in the screenplay. Eisenberg gave the actors enough room to explore and let the best moments rise organically.

---

The Boys

Throughout the script, Benji and David are often referred to simply as “the boys.”

• It’s used 48 times in the screenplay.

• On Page 96 alone, it appears six times.

This simple phrasing reinforces their bond. It gives their relationship a tribal, communal quality - two men who, despite their differences, are still family at their core.

---

Chopin’s Nocturnes:

Eisenberg weaves Chopin’s Nocturnes throughout the film, tying in Poland’s rich cultural history. This screenplay taught me:

• Chopin was a Polish composer in the 1830s.

• Warsaw’s airport is named after him.

Seven different Chopin pieces are used a total of eight times. Chopin’s music plays at key moments:

• Page 58: “Nocturne Op. 9, No. 1 plays over the following:”

---

Conflict: The Backbone of the Story

At least 70% of the scenes contain conflict, keeping the tension high.

Page 61: Benji clashes with James (the tour guide) at the cemetery.

“I mean, you know your shit, don’t get me wrong. And Eloge, you totally know your shit, which is doubly impressive. But it’s just like, the constant barrage of stats is kinda making this trip a little cold, you know?... And, like, part of the problem, if we’re bein honest right now, with the tour is that we’ve been cut off from anything real… Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but we’ve just been going from one touristy thing to another, not meeting anyone who’s actually Polish-“

Conflict drives the screenplay, heightening emotional stakes and making every scene feel alive.

---

Imagery & Symbolism

Bookending the Story

The opening and closing scenes mirror each other - a classic storytelling technique. This highlights the tragic reality: Benji hasn’t really changed.

He may temporarily feel loved, but that feeling always fades. When David invites him home at the end, Benji declines, once again, choosing his isolation.

It becomes clear: David is the only one who grew as a character and fulfilled his destiny. Benji was the catalyst.

The Jewish Cemetery

David rides home in a cab and passes a Jewish cemetery in New York. One of the most beautiful moments in the screenplay:

All this Jewish history right next door - upward mobility and death, the cycle. David takes it all in, a part of it all.

---

Strong Dialogue

Eisenberg’s dialogue is sharp, meaningful, and deeply human.

• Page 70: David explains his frustration with Benji:“I’m not. That’s the thing! I have shit going on! I do. But I take a pill for my fucking OCD, I jog, I meditate and I go to work and come home and end the day. I move forward. Because I know my pain is unexceptional so I don’t feel the need to burden everybody with it.”

Here are more worth digging into:

• Page 46: Benji, disturbed by their situation.

• Page 57: A discussion on generational pain - whether we must carry it or move forward.

• Page 68: David shares his grandmother’s immigration story.

  ---

Narrative Devices: The Depth of A Real Pain

TONE:

Melancholic

At its core, A Real Pain carries a deep sense of trauma and loss - both personal and historical. David and Benji are grieving their grandmother, but they each process this grief differently. Beneath their banter and arguments, both characters struggle with feeling unheard and unseen.

Introspective

This is a film about self-examination. David and Benji question their identity, their connection to their past, and their family ties.

Dry Humor

The comedy in A Real Pain is dry, subtle, and perfectly timed. It serves an important function: balancing the emotional weight of the story, making the moments of pain bearable.

---

THEMES:

Inherited Trauma

One of the most potent ideas in A Real Pain is how the past lingers in the present. The Holocaust may be decades behind them, but it still shapes the emotions and identities of people today - even those who weren’t there.

Coping Mechanisms

David and Benji deal with their struggles in different ways. David uses introspective anxiety. He overthinks, overanalyzes, and tries to control his emotions. Benji uses humor and self-destruction, avoiding his pain by throwing himself into chaotic situations.

Family Bonds

Family is both a source of deep connection and a source of deep pain.

Cultural Identity

A Real Pain asks a critical question: What does it mean to carry the weight of shared history?

---

INTERNAL CONFLICT:

David’s Anxiety & Self-Doubt

• He is constantly overthinking, making it difficult to move through life smoothly.

• He feels guilty for being "unexceptional" in his pain and works hard to keep it hidden from others.

Benji’s Shifting Identity (The Chameleon Effect)

• Benji buries his deep sadness by adopting a larger-than-life persona.

• This leads to emotional disconnection and self-destructive behavior.

Fear of Meaninglessness

• The film’s existential question: How do you honor the past while still living your own life?

• David and Benji both feel insignificant in the shadow of their family’s history.

  ---

EXTERNAL CONFLICT

David vs. Benji

• Their clashing personalities create friction. David is neurotic and cautious, while Benji is reckless and volatile.

Benji vs. The Tour Group

• Benji disrupts the group with his irreverence, humor, and anger. He will do anything to derail the experience. Not because he doesn’t care but because he can’t handle his own emotions.

Benji vs. Himself

• He has been a danger to himself in the past. Just like he derails the tour, he has also tried derailing his own life, all to avoid dealing with his pain.

---

NARRATIVE STYLES

Unresolved Conflict

A Real Pain doesn’t give us an easy resolution - which is rare in screenwriting but common in literary fiction. The story ends without tying things up neatly because real life doesn’t work that way.

Road Trip Narrative

This is both a physical journey and a psychological journey. Think: Little Miss Sunshine.

Dual Protagonists

The story is told through two perspectives, not just one. But crucially, only one character grows.

Tragicomic

This is hard to pull off, but when done right, it’s award-worthy. A Real Pain balances tragedy and comedy without either undercutting the other. Think: Silver Linings Playbook or Parasite.

---

THREE ACT STRUCTURE

Act 1

• Characters Established

  • David: Anxious, overly self-aware.

  • Benji: Reckless, charismatic, unpredictable.

  • Their relationship is tense but affectionate, setting up the emotional core of the screenplay.

• Inciting Incident

  • They embark on a trip to Poland to learn about their family’s history after their grandmother’s death.

Act 2

• Rising Action

  • The emotional weight of the tour clashes with Benji’s inability to cope.

  • David, meanwhile, puts up his own emotional walls, trying to distance himself from the pain.

• Midpoint Crisis

  • Conflict everywhere:

    • Benji vs. David.

    • Benji vs. The Group.

    • Benji vs. The Tour Guide.

Act 3

• Climax

  • David faces a moment of reckoning. Does he continue trying to help Benji, or does he walk away?

• Resolution

  • David gains a new understanding of himself through Benji.

  • The trauma - personal, family, cultural - remains unresolved.

  • Benji remains unchanged.

---

Closing Thoughts: A Real Pain by Jesse Eisenberg

This screenplay is a real pleasure.

Jesse Eisenberg has hit on some rare magic where the reader is reminded of a truth they know to be true but didn’t know they knew to be true. Find that in your stories and you have the special sauce.

---

Call to Action

If you enjoyed this breakdown, please subscribe and share it with your writing and filmmaking friends.

Also, check out my website, Jeff-Barker.com, and follow me on all the social media platforms.

A video podcast of this is available on YouTube. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts.