Writing and Directing this film was a passion project for Jesse Eisenberg. It is heart warming, maddening, but also informative and funny. This is no ordinary road trip for two first cousins who love their revered late grandmother’s wish for them to see where she came from, but it becomes so much more than that. The cousins were very close growing up but grew apart and this is a way get to catch up again.
These two couldn’t be more different. Benji Kaplan (Emmy Award winning, Kieran Culkin – Succession) is the outlandish crazy cousin who has no filter. He’s an extroverted free spirit who talks constantly to anyone and everyone. Benji is always pushing the envelope, even telling his cousin at the airport that he sent weed to their hotel in Europe. That makes David (Jesse Eisenberg), his straight, suburban, working, family man cousin, nervous. David has planned the trip well, but with Benji’s history has to work harder to keep it on track.
Truthfully, if Benji were like David, this would be a pretty boring movie, but Eisenberg gives Culkin plenty of crazy antics to play with in the script. One of the most amusing is the scene where the cousins smoke weed together in their hotel room. Eisenberg is known for working outside the box with his choice of projects and roles. We interviewed him for The Art of Self Defense and for Sasquatch Sunset which are two very different films. He’s been likened to a young Woody Allen, whose films are always out of the ordinary. In this one, it’s all done against the backdrop of family history, but he’s the normal cousin of the two.
David greatly admires the bravery of the Jews who went through World War II and survived the Holocaust as his grandmother did. He wants to retrace her steps to better understand what she went through, because she never talked about it. The film becomes a Polish travelogue through a tour group led by British guide James (Will Sharpe) who takes them all over by bus and train. The group has an interesting mix that includes an attractive, divorced, middle-age woman, Marcia (-Jennifer Grey – Dirty Dancing), a slightly older couple, Diane and Mark (Liza Sadovy and Daniel Oreskes) who have some knowledge and ask good questions, and Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan), an African-Jewish convert from Rwanda.
Guide James is well-versed and tastefully but truthfully answers questions about what happened during the war, including the Jewish heroes of that time and how they died or survived in the Concentration Camps. Benji takes exception with what James presents and cruelly cuts him to the quick. Culkin plays a complicated character who could be cute and flirtatious in one moment and exasperating in the next.
James leads the group through the Majdanek concentration camp outside Lublin where their grandmother was taken during the war. David is made aware that the Jews were not like lambs led to a slaughter. The visuals speak for themselves. Eisenberg shows maturity as a filmmaker, letting the power of silence give the characters and the audience time to process the horrors that took place there. It’s a moving sequence.
David and Benji have one more task, to find their grandmother’s house. With all that the cousins have gone through to get there, it’s seems somewhat anti-climactic, and becomes comical. With their goal accomplished, the cousins have reconnected for the moment.
There’s plenty of humor, history, and a bit of satire in this poignant, funny buddy road trip. Eisenberg writes and directs with just the right touch and Culkin stands out delivering a sensitive, troubled, but crazy-fun role despite being the real pain.
Searchlight Pictures 1 hour 30 minutes R
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