A Real Pain (the film)

Did you like this film? I did. I keep thinking about it. I haven't started a thread in ages but I keep wanting to tell all my friends who are my age they should really watch A Real Pain and maybe it's unnecessary these days to make a new thread about one film, but I wanted to. Did you like it? Let's talk about A Real Pain

I liked it, I didn't love it. I'm not sure why.

maybe it's unnecessary these days to make a new thread about one film

it's more necessary than ever imo!

also liked but didn't love, but I don't have any real nits to pick about it. there's a lot to admire.

From the Jesse Eisenberg thread:

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I really enjoyed A Real Pain, feels anachronistic to have a low-key movie about some humans in theaters in 2024. Plenty of grade A Kieran Culkin.

― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Thursday, December 5, 2024 10:03 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Culkin is first-rate: my favorite male performance of the year (I know that character). And it's a LEAD performance, not supporting.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, December 5, 2024 10:05 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

True on both counts.

Slightly unremarked on but maybe I just haven't noticed: while the discussion around The Zone of Interest absolutely had Gaza and what's resulted as unintentional framing, both this and The Brutalist are further examples of that context implicitly playing out by default. (All three films were finished shooting before last October.)

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, December 5, 2024 10:52 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

The trailer for A Real Pain has annoyed me every time I've seen it -- maybe it's just the Spoon song, but I get big mid-2000s indie dramedy vibes. But I'll probably still see the movie.

― jaymc, Thursday, December 5, 2024 10:59 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thankfully the film has all Chopin piano music as the soundtrack (tbh I didn't know he was Polish), would have been a drag if it had been '00s indie rock.

― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Thursday, December 5, 2024 11:22 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sometimes the soundtrack's too much imo.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, December 5, 2024 11:25 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

And yeah Ned, that was of course looming in the background, I felt like it was at least obliquely acknowledged in the conversation about being numb to current suffering in the world, and around the Rwandan character. Very obliquely, perhaps, but still. Also helped that it was so focused as a character piece.

― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Thursday, December 5, 2024 11:27 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

The trailer for A Real Pain has annoyed me every time I've seen it -- maybe it's just the Spoon song, but I get big mid-2000s indie dramedy vibes. But I'll probably still see the movie.
― jaymc, Thursday, 5 December 2024 11:59 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

trailer was terrible but thankfully not at all representative of the movie (which i loved)

― flopson, Thursday, December 5, 2024 12:27 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

trailer got me hyped for a 2000s whiteboy crisis drama

― kurt schwitterz, Thursday, December 5, 2024 12:33 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

i watched 'manodrome', odd incel movie, not great... somewhat surprised eisenberg wanted to be in this, tho his performance -- mannerisms, character styling strongly reminded me of brad renfro in 'bully', i really wonder if that was on purpose or just my conflating

― johnny crunch, Thursday, December 19, 2024 8:11 AM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I did end up seeing and liking A Real Pain.

― jaymc, Thursday, December 19, 2024 8:29 AM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

two weeks pass...

Really disliked this but I kind of think maybe I'm an asshole for feeling so

― H.P, Monday, January 6, 2025 12:48 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Like it seemed the premise of the film relies on Benji actually being a good person somewhere under all the muck?... or that he has any desirable attributes at all. I found none of his kookiness charming, and considering said kookiness is where alot of the comedy of this film resided (i assume?).... yeah. The dinner seen was great, but it didn't feel earned.

"Bye David" from the tour guide was hilarious though.

I'm the married man at the tour dinner sorry folks.

― H.P, Monday, January 6, 2025 12:52 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

*scene

― H.P, Monday, January 6, 2025 12:53 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I didn't think he was charming or likable either, hence why the film felt unusually adult for an American project.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, January 6, 2025 4:13 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Him not being charming or likeable isn't a fault of the film. The fault lies in the voice of the author coming out multiple times to say that he is. There was a didactic tone in the final 1/3rd on that point. I couldn't gel with it

― H.P, Monday, January 6, 2025 4:17 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

It didn't bother me, in part because Eisenberg's script and directing (and Culkin's performance) complexify the relationship. Like I wrote last month, I've had relatives like Benji.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, January 6, 2025 4:20 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

The fact that this extremely sad and unlikeable man was constantly played of for laughs made this feel childish, not adult. I do have sympathy for Benji, I just think creating a comedy bases on his pathological cries for help is just bad humour?

― H.P, Monday, January 6, 2025 4:20 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

This being Culkin's first role after succession, where he fundamentally plays the same character probably didn't help.... I don't deny it's a good performance, but it's the same performance so it just felt stale.

― H.P, Monday, January 6, 2025 4:22 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sorry to hear Alfred. And thankfully you're no David

― H.P, Monday, January 6, 2025 4:23 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ha, I haven't watched a single frame of Succession, though I've seen Culkin in other roles.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, January 6, 2025 5:20 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I liked this. I didn't love it and wasn't sure how I felt about the very final scene, but as a character study I did find it interesting and well acted.

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Monday, January 6, 2025 5:26 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I still haven't decided whether I like Eisenberg as an actor and enjoy watching him on screen. I did like this movie, despite misgivings (ie, as above: was Benji as charming as we were meant to think). I give it 3.5 out of 5.

― Sam Weller, Wednesday, January 8, 2025 5:11 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

benji rules

― flopson, Wednesday, January 8, 2025 7:49 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I just don't worry (anymore) about likability or the director's attitude towards the likability of the characters. I'm watching fiction.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 8, 2025 8:37 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I need to work out how I feel about this. I liked the (relatively) minor nature of the character study and of course Culkin is great but I watched a Kelly Reichardt film last night, where minor is allowed to be just that, and is all the more powerful it. I know you said in your review Alfred that this wasn't a grand tour, but why this setting at all? If it was to magnify the aspects of Culkin's neurodiversity for comic effect then I guess I see the purpose, but other than that?

I guess as it settles it will be the character portrait that endures and that's probably the point.

Weirdly, speaking of Reichardt, the ending made me think of Old Joy - someone adrift, uncertain of their future. I

― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Thursday, January 9, 2025 3:35 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ooh, good analogy.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, January 9, 2025 3:37 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I pressed submit before I meant to: my version is that I've taught (and loved) kids like Benji. I'm not sure I've seen them on screen like that before.

― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Thursday, January 9, 2025 3:42 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, agreed

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, January 9, 2025 3:54 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Weirdly, speaking of Reichardt, the ending made me think of Old Joy - someone adrift, uncertain of their future.

Nearly posted exactly this to the Reichardt thread a few hours back!
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, January 9, 2025 11:00 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

The ending is also very Withnail and I in its emotional tone

― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, January 9, 2025 11:00 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

This movie inspired us to have our own Kieran Culkin film series.

i’m planning to watch this weekend - i’ve been ride or die for Culkin ever since Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys.

Ah I didn't see the Eisenberg thread. Apologies, I'd had a skinful last night. Still, I liked this film a lot!

I know, and have had to suffer, so many Benjis. And I admit I've probably been somebody's Benji at times too

I'm not sure we're supposed to think of Benji as a likeable or charming guy at all, but he's not a BAD person. He's difficult. And David, being most familiar with him, is the soundboard and reflector of that. He feels oppressed by Benji's complexities and eccentricities because he knows he can never be as forthright and confident and weirdly charismatic as his cousin, who he has grown up with and loves a lot despite everything.

Film reminds me of Happy Go Lucky in many ways. A character study about someone whose gregariousness charms and tyrranises people in equal measure, and leaves us with incredibly mixed but rich feelings about them

I'm not sure we're supposed to think of Benji as a likeable or charming guy at all

he charms every single other character in the movie aside from eisenberg. even the tour guide loves him by the end and gives him a big hug. i think it’s safe to assume he is charming

I think some of the confusion stems from thinking "The other characters find him charming" means "I must find him charming too," which, no.

"no," i.e. It's okay, you don't have to find Benji charming, just believe why everyone else does. I found Eisenberg's self-effacement -- he makes himself the whining bore -- refreshing.

it's interesting that you guys agree that culkin's performance is good yet find the character charmless. for me the balance of troubled-yet-charming he struck was what made it so good. if think if i'd simply found him disagreeable it wouldn't have been as interesting

I find him quite fuckable! I'd never seem Succession, so my first thought was, "Mm who's this hottie?"

lmao

and Benji's the sort of guy who'd respond to my flirting with him and just when I go for the kill he yawns and wishes me good night and doesn't even invite me to smoke weed on the roof with him

THERE'S your real pain.

You don't have to like a character in order to LIKE that character, if you know what I mean.

I've known, and would consider a few of my friends to be, similar to Benji. Deep down they've got good hearts - they're not bad or malicious people, and are in fact very caring and conscientious when they want to be. But they're also eccentric, often inappropriate, and exhibit a lack self-awareness that makes them a bit TOO MUCH at the best of times.

I've been David on occasion, watching with a mix of horror and admiration as my Benji starts acting the goat around people we barely know. I want to melt into the floor, or tell him to tone it down, or at least apologise to the person on the receiving end of whatever japery he's putting on them.

But all too often it turns out much like the photo opportunity at the war memorial scene and I realise that my secondhand embarrassment is partly down to me and my neuroses, and my fears about the wider world and the people in it, and my familiarity with said friend causing me to do performative eye-rolls in my mind while they actually end up brightening up an otherwise dull day in a stranger's life.

So yes, as Alfred says, as a lived-in character he is charming within the world of the film even if we the audience are given a form of omniscience because we're viewing him through the eyes of his despairing, worried and socially-inhibited cousin

this is just the “i like pancakes” “so you hate waffles?” thing where people can’t conceive of a thing having both positive and negative qualities simultaneou. if benji were charming, that would imply he is also a good person in every other way, yet he is narcissistic and immature, therefore he is not charming. alfred at least had the consistently to say he is not charming at all just hot

possibly an idiosyncratic thing but several (maybe all?) of the “benjis” i’ve known personally were also jewish stoners

alfred at least had the consistently to say he is not charming at all just hot

lol I guess I wasn't clear: I find him charming and hot!

Film reminds me of Happy Go Lucky in many ways. A character study about someone whose gregariousness charms and tyrranises people in equal measure, and leaves us with incredibly mixed but rich feelings about them

An excellent comparison. Whatever else, we know Poppy will be alright, so will Benji -- to the intense irritation of those around them.

I'll continue being the temporary grunp sorry all!

I found Eisenberg's self-effacement -- he makes himself the whining bore -- refreshing.

The self-effacement felt vain! I had the thought "shouldn't this film have just been an Eisenberg journal entry?" during the film. Blame me for reading around the context of its production tho; not sure if that thought appears otherwise. Sure some will say "make the art that speaks to you!" But on the other hand thank God not every personal journal thought is made into a major motion picture (or then again?????)

And he's not charming or hot! I hate the look of the guy, those stupid pants he wore were so flamboyantly ugly, it drove me crazy! Easier to watch The Substance!

I was never too sure whether we were to entirely agree or empathise with Eisenberg's character. Outwardly he espouses a Stoic stance of "Everybody hurts, so why should I burden people with that?"

But he is also extremely fragile and self-pitying. He strikes me as someone who has actively taught himself to fight against his sensitivities, which has turned him into a nervous and fearful character who takes medication for his OCD and whom Benji calls out for not "feeling things" like he used to.

In that, it's a brand of toxic masculinity that pushes emotions down. But unfortunately this is to his detriment because he can't mask it with Benji's geniality. Rather than being a ball of emotions, he's just a rock

Benji's style of geniality, I should say. I don't think either of these characters are here as talking heads making points. They're both incredibly flawed and complicated male characters who've learned to cope with their emotions and their relationships in divergent ways

Yes! Hence my appreciation of how subtly Eisenberg interrogates how toxicity infects purportedly safe male-male relations.

Benji boasting and belittling David in front of the group about what a scared kid he was as a boy, and how he used to have to comfort him when he got upset. You just know this is an unreliable narrator at work here, with nuggets of truth going on. If anything the tables have flipped and it's now David, the dull responsible one, taking care of Benji's emotional outbursts.

What's more, I can imagine that maybe David's younger emotional moments being exacerbated by Benji when they were kids. It sounds like it would have been too easy for someone like Benji to tip young David into apoplexy, and then make a show of trying to calm him down. Elements of co-dependency here where Benji would prod David to breaking point so that he could then feel like the caring, nurturing cousin.

Meanwhile, Benji's relationship with their grandmother feels overstated and rather more complicated than he might make out

Whatever else, we know Poppy will be alright, so will Benji

I wish I had your confidence. I have hope for him, but I suppose I'm in David's position of being basically worried. We don't really know anything about what Benji is going back to, what his future looks like.

Benji's one of those SOBs for whom luck, despite his mental health challenges, always shines. He'll always have a job, girlfriend, etc.

I lolled very hard at the Letterboxd comment I read that said "I can't believe Jesse Eisenberg wrote a whole scene about how beautiful his own feet are". And yes, that's pretty funny. But at the same time it's important to remember these two guys aren't playing themselves. Maybe aspects of themselves, but it's not necessarily the same as The Trip or whatever.

Are you suggesting they're stunt feet

You don't have to like a character in order to LIKE that character, if you know what I mean.

which makes it doubly enjoyable that it's Kieran Culkin we're talking about, because that is exactly how I (and probably everyone) reacted to his character on Succession.

Isn't the suggestion at the end that he he *doesn't* have a girlfriend and a job? I feel much less sanguine about his future, tbh.

As for Eisenberg's character, he lives in NYC and has a lovely apartment, wife and kid, and appears to have one of those handwavey jobs people have in so many dramas like these. Distance from the film, for me at least, has left me feeling his character was underwritten. A cipher, even.

I heard Eisenberg say in an interview that when he was first writing it he thought he would play Benji, which is hilarious and it's to his credit that he made the correct decision.

Wow, no, that would have not been a good idea. If anything it reads like it was written specifically with Culkin in mind. He's basically a broke stoner version of Roman Roy

I found him both convincingly charming in the world of the film (which is also bound up with his vulnerability), and could feel myself shrinking away from that type of person, whose gregariousness *demands* a specific reaction from you in the moment. And if you refuse you look like Eisenberg. There are few things I find more off-putting irl, I'm obviously more of an Eisenberg.

Yeah he's very "C'mon man, loosen up, I'm just a silly little guy, what's wrong with you? Why so serious all the time?" Then he'd try and tweak your nipple or something

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luADCqCcuGc
Apparently we can credit Emma Stone for this. Maybe Eisenberg wanted to act against his usual type, I'm not so sure he couldn't have done it, I would like to see the alternate reality version of this too.

She also called Culkin and convinced him to do the part when he was going to pull out pretty late into pre-production.

Ha, he should make sure he thanks her in his Oscar speech:

He tried to pull out of A Real Pain just before production began and ended up on the phone with Emma Stone, his onetime girlfriend and a producer of the film. “She did an almost reverse-psychology thing on me,” he says, laughing. “She was like, ‘Oh, I totally get that. If I were you, I’d probably feel that way.’ And I was like, ‘But have they started?’ She goes, ‘Oh, yeah. They’re actually already in Poland scouting locations; people are hired.’ I was like, ‘It’s not like people would be out of a job?’ She’s like, ‘No, no, they would, but it’s not on you. You said ‘yes,’ but if you have your reasons for not doing it, you’re not responsible for these people’s jobs. It’s fine; you do whatever you want.’ And I got off the phone and I went, ‘Ah.’ ” Stone laughs recalling the conversation. “I can’t believe he talked about it publicly,” she says. “Producing, I’ve realized now, is like parenting — every kid needs different things.”

I just watched this. I have a lot of sympathy for benji characters — he and david, and their duality, remind me of me and my brother a bit (we’re also from binghamton, so I thought that was funny) — but I just didnt think there was much more to this.

i feel like everyone knows a benji type to some degree.. that is a credit to the writing & performing to make him so relatable

i admired the last scene in poland where david is trying to press benji like what is your plan etc? i feel like benjis lack of even entertaning a srs answer speaks volumes and a lesser movie would spin that out into a bigger convo or benji monologue

A 90-minute film is a joy forever.

i admired the last scene in poland where david is trying to press benji like what is your plan etc?

I feel like I've been on both sides of this conversation.

The slap at the end seemed to me to sum up something of this movie's comedy - the inevitable mismatch in the way we meet each other's pain?

A question like "What is your plan?" could be considered presumptuous and patronising in a lot of contexts. I could imagine myself getting pissed off if someone asked me this question, even if it came from the right place which it clearly does.

Again I'm reminded of Happy Go Lucky in that scene where she goes to visit her sister who's pregnant and starts prodding Poppy about when (not if) she's going to have children and get a mortgage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqj6w0yW_Xc

Thought this was ok, no more, no less, very Indie Film, so surprised it has its own thread and look forward to reading.

I had a flashback watching it to 2002, when Jesse Eisenberg more or less debuted in "Rodger Dodger" and Kieran Culkin more or less busted out in "Igby Goes Down," and here they are now.

This is a good movie where nothing happens.

Watched this last night, I liked. Kind of a minor-key movie but it has some power. To me it both is and isn’t a Holocaust film. It’s about Benji trying to understand his own difficulties in the world by understanding the person who presumably helped shape him and scar him — who passed on to him her own pain. I think what ends up overwhelming him is the scale of that pain and the impossibility of ever really reconciling it.

Where Eisenberg’s character has taken the perhaps more common defense mechanism of just denying and repressing his own part of that heritage.

I liked it but I'm a sucker for bittersweet stories of friendship with ppl who are lovable and charismatic but also deeply self-destructive, you know, the type of guys Kris Kristofferson wrote songs about.

Benji's mercurial nature is so funny, like when he totally forgot the dressing down he gave the tour guide. Or his moment about travelling first class on the train, where I totally sympathize with what he's saying but at the same time weren't you playing soldiers in front of a war memorial yesterday?

Is the old man towards the end an anti-semite or just a busybody? Or is that the point, that if you're Jewish that question will always hang in the air?

On a lighter note, if they didn't want anything pickled and no pierogi they could've gone out for schnitzel? Austrian I know, but beloved of my local Polish restaurant and the Hassidic kebab place round my corner alike.

An excellent comparison. Whatever else, we know Poppy will be alright, so will Benji -- to the intense irritation of those around them.

Surprised at this assessment...Didn't he take an an overdose around 6 months before the trip? And my reading of his character is that he can pull a charismatic outgoing act together for a short time - influence people, and get everyone talking about what an amazing guy he is -but he's troubled by 'a real pain' and he can't hold sustain it.

Sure. Part of his pain rests, as tipsy noted, in the shadow of the Holocaust's effect on his beloved grandmother, and the intensity with which he clings to her memory is part of his own trauma. So he relies on, if this makes sense, an insouciant sincerity: he's so casual about his passions, which has irritated David for decades. That's why I think he'll be okay despite the turmoil.

Yeah, I dunno. His decision to just hang in the airport, a literal purgatory, was really sad to me.

xxpost I did kind of wonder whether the translation of the grouchy neighbor grumbling in Polish was accurate, or whether his son (or whoever that was that was translating) was cleaning it up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62NhlcLoRO8

Culkin and Eisenberg on Graham Norton delighting in British slang

I like that Kieran Culkin has his interview jumper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjwBFStaGds

Enjoyed this a lot. Was distracted by the Eisenberg character always having one button on his shirts buttoned, in the middle. Would make a good double feature with The End of the Tour.

Was sure the Polish guys on the balcony were going to be subtly or overtly anti-Semetic, but nope.

As I mentioned above, I'm honestly curious if the son or whoever the other person was was translating his father's word accurately ...

Was distracted by the Eisenberg character always having one button on his shirts buttoned, in the middle

don't remember if this was on Maron or somewhere else, but he said that this is the way he wears his shirts IRL and that, for the film, he liked that it was a specific, odd choice that isn't explained.

I did a trip to Japan with my brother many years ago and god if it didn't go eerily similar to this movie. Immediately after the trip I vowed to never travel with him again, but as I thought about it, I realized how rigid and uptight and unfun I had been. To my brother's credit, he also pulled together his life quite a bit after that, enough that we cautiously tried another trip a couple years ago that went very well. Good movie

As I mentioned above, I'm honestly curious if the son or whoever the other person was was translating his father's word accurately ...

So I figured it's 2025, the internet is terrible but it should at least be reasonably easy to find a Polish speaker who's seen it - and yeah there's a reddit thread where a Polish viewer praises the film for its positive portrayal of Poland, and specifically said he was expecting the old dad to be an "anti semitic rube" and was pleasantly surprised that he turned out to be "just an average dad", so I'm guessing son translated correctly.

Nonetheless the fact that we as non-Polish speakers do not know this and are left with the nagging doubt is clever, I guess.

maybe I will give it a shot with Google translate later today.

I looked up the screenplay and it just says "an OLDER MAN berates them in Polish." So it doesn't seem like Eisenberg intended anything specific there.

I think it's also a nice flip of the whole scene where Benji gets everyone to pose with the statue in public perhaps. For once David comes up with what he thinks is a sweet, sentimental little idea and convinces Benji to play along only to be told off by literally the one guy

Haven't read any of this thread yet, but thought this was pretty impressive--more so when the end credits came up and I learned Eisenberg also wrote it. I saw his first film with Julianne Moore and the teenage son--it was okay, but this is definitely a step forward. Eisenberg and Culkin are a warehouse of mannerisms as actors, but I didn't dwell on that and just immersed myself in the premise and the writing. One of my favourite movie dynamics (I think I started a thread on it once, but no idea how to search whatever I titled it): the responsible, sometimes repressed straight arrow and the loose-cannon cousin/brother/friend/etc. Like Charlie and Johnny Boy in Mean Streets; also started thinking about Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo in You Can Count on Me, Matt Damon and Ed Norton in Rounders, even Frances Conroy and Patricia Clarkson in Six Feet Under. Marcia had a line that made me laugh out loud, something I don't do a lot at newer movies.

You Can Count On Me definitely in the same family as this type of film, and not just because it features another Culkin.

Yeah, another good sibling story.

You all have me actually kinda wanting to see this

Found the thread--Johnny Boy, duh.

The Charlie/Johnny Boy Dynamic: Other Examples?

I wondered at the end if there was a suggestion that Benji was homeless--am I reading too much into that?

I don't think that's what's happening, but also I don't think he's got a lot to go home to. Does he still live in his mum's basement? I can't remember what living arrangements were discussed other than his mum found him on her couch when he overdosed

He wants to hang at the airport! A delicious final touch after everything we've learned about him.

You meet all kinds of people there... Perhaps he feels more comfortable around strangers. I'm not sure how much there is to unpack there, but it's definitely in character.

Similar to Vinnie upthread, I recently went on a trip to Edinburgh festival with two formerly-close friends I hadn't hung out with in years.
One of their parents had recently passed away and it was his idea to treat us to some cheap accommodation and for us to go up, stay in a hostel and go see some comedy.
They'd both always been a little quirky, but if anything they'd leaned into their eccentricities in the years we'd grown apart and I spent my weekend cringeing internally at their Benji-ness.
We all used to play in a band together, but since we stopped hanging out they'd taken to busking semi-professionally and playing covers in restaurants and at weddings. Something I hadn't bargained on was for them to turn up with all their busking gear (including guitars, amps etc) and to insist on having their guitars on them throughout the whole trip, stopping on every street corner to sing a song, awkwardly carrying instruments through busy streets and queues, accosting bemused passers-by, never wanting to do anything considered "normal" (like go for a drink and a sit down). On top of that there was all kinds of other stuff, not just the busking, that made me want to curl up and die, but also feel like an uptight fun-sponge like David.
I love those dudes like brothers, but the whole thing was tough for me; the sort of behaviour one might find endearing in hyperactive and socially awkward 20-year old, but definitely not 6-ft tall men in their 30s and 40s.

Long-story-short, deciding to just hang out at the airport and talk to random strangers is EXACTLY what these guys would choose to do; but you wouldn't see them dead round a pub table having a normal conversation

the airport thing is a callback, remember he also arrived at the airport hours before he needed to and gave the same justification. dude is clearly drifting.

Lol dog latin, my brother's solo trips basically consist of him talking to random strangers in whatever place he winds up in

insist on having their guitars on them throughout the whole trip

lol this is amazing... thanks for this story.

We need dog latin to do an entry for the next festival about this trip, which turns into a Netflix series, which etc.

I'll hang out in the airport with him, lots of good restaurants these days.

My Airport Hang With Alfred

I loved this. A lot. They were both so good and I feel like each character was an amalgamation of several guys I grew up/went to college with. Shit, I feel like I have a whole lot of both B and D in me! There were also a lot of very subtle but funny lines though I'd have to watch it again to remember what.

Daniel_RF otm about Benji staying at the airport just drifting. It's the type of thing he does but it showed there is nothing he's in a rush to get home to Binghampton for as opposed to David who has Priya and the kid etc.

Was just reminded of Old Joy with a similar “where’s he gonna go?” question.

I absolutely love airports and would show up early to one but would NEVER choose to spend time there AFTER a flight. It reminded me of the old Lois CK bit about getting off a flight and buying Cinnabon before getting a cab home.

Xps to Ned... No that's just the start of it. I could write pages about those three days, seriously.

Actually no, we walked past a church on our way into town once morning, and one of the guys insisted we go in to "check it out". This wasn't, like, a grand old church or anything just an everyday proddy church in a newish building.
My suspicion is that he'd spotted the beautiful grand piano that had been set up near the altar at the front or seen the poster on display outside saying that there would be a recital later on, because as soon as said friend walked in, he bounded up to the first official-looking person he could see and asked if he could PLAY THE PIANO; "I promise I will be very very respectful".
Before the man could shrug and say "I'm just a guy with a lanyard, it's not up to me", my friend was sat at the piano playing a (to be fair, fairly pretty) rendition of Moonlight Sonata.
As we left the church, my friend who'd been told in no uncertain terms to leave about 16 bars into his performance, shook his head: "I don't see why that sound engineer had to be like that. Some people are so up themselves..."

Might explain why I found this film so relatable

The only thing I'll point out is that (as I remember it) he speaks of living in his mother's basement in the past tense--"I lived," not "I live."

If the point was 'he's just hanging and having a good time!' surely the shot would be of him doing just that, instead of, you know, a lingering shot of him looking scared and alone.

Yeah, that was my take. He's scared and alone and needs other people to distract him from his own loneliness, to feel part of something, or at least pretend to, when in fact he's completely alienated and has nothing to live for, or show for his life. His brother captures something innate to their existence or wiring, that he, too, despite having a family and job and home, is inherently unhappy, too, but just trying to make the best of it.

i interpreted staying at airport as homeless but the person i saw it with vociferously disagreed

I think Josh In Chicago's take is the most likely take

Benji has also been through a lot of grieving on this trip. When we leave him, it's at an unresolved stage in this process. I'm not sure that we need to read him as just focused on his own life situation in that final shot.

it showed there is nothing he's in a rush to get home to Binghampton for

as someone who grew up in the decadent upstate city that definitely seems like it should have a “P” in it, can confirm