Actor Jesse Eisenberg is now emerging as a writer/director to be
reckoned with. He made the recent When You Finish Saving the
World. Now he’s come up with this little sleeper, a genre blend
that fluidly careens from mismatched buddy movie to charged
family drama to consciousness-raising road flick. Movies with a
background of despair and existential pain are simply not
supposed to be this charming and flat-out funny.
A pair of cousins on a trip to Poland to honor their recently
deceased grandmother, a WWII survivor, couldn’t be more
different. David (Eisenberg) is up-tight, socially awkward and
painfully reserved. For his deceptively complex cousin Benji,
scene-stealer Kieran Culkin is clearly drawing on his snarky
character in Succession but throws in a whole lot more charm and
amiability.
At first this seems like a buddy movie rich in comic verbal banter,
but before you know it, it’s morphed into a drama with a real
emotional kick. And then back again. It’s not a movie of big
statements or even real conclusions, but a meander in unexpected
but very relatable directions, balancing cynical wit with striking
solemnity. I may watch it again. (90 min)