📺 A REAL PAIN TO WATCH.

Yeah I felt about the same honesty. Nothing really wrong with it but I'd never watch it again. It didn't really have anything new or interesting to say.

Agreed. It was just a bunch of sensory experiences that equaled nothing. Lots of Eisenberg-ism overload. And I still don't get what's so great about Kieran. Anyway, meh.

One would think that when they came up with the title, that someone would have realized, "Every critic is going to say this movie was A REAL PAiN TO WATCH."

I loved it. I thought it was a big little film that really packed a punch. In my opinion, one the best 2024 films. Others are The Apprentice, A Different Man. Brilliant writing by Eisenberg. It’s also a good road trip movie; there was comedy and tragedy - much like Trains, Planes, Automobiles, which was much lighter.

At the end, when the Culkin character (Benji) was sitting in the airport just staring out after Jesse left to go back home - and he did have a home with a family and a career - Benji is just gazing outward with this starry look. And we know what his future will be. He will be one of the ones we pass by crouched some place on a sidewalk, at the airport, somewhere, that we step over and around and wonder how he got to this point. That was the devastating reality.

I just recently saw the BAFTA awards and Jesse Eisenberg won the award for best original screenplay. And in his humble acceptance speech, he credits his wife he met 20 years ago. She dragged him backpacking to Venezuela and ever since then she's dragged him around the world, and that's how he got to know about the world, which is what this “mini” masterpiece is about.