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)