Vital Topics: Social Work & Film
by SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD
A Real Pain is essential film for those in the social work and related professions to experience and to recommend, brilliantly written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, and starring Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin. With uncommon insight, A Real Pain gently addresses myriad examples of intergenerational trauma that run the gamut from a lack of self-respect to self-loathing, leading to an inability to connect with others and the devastation of failed relationships. It offers the opportunity to address questions we as social workers are asked again and again: Why am I hated? Why do “they” want to kill us?
Please note: Following is plot framing, devoid of spoilers.
Social workers know that burying our pain, pushing it toward oblivion, is a major cause of failure in all aspects of life. A Real Pain reveals the cost of personal isolation and the importance of connection. We learn that even if the intensity of connection between two who love and trust may seem frightening and overwhelming, refusing to walk away leads to mutual compassion and broader insights and vision that uplift in remarkable ways. The film also affirms that, with unshakable hope, we can endure what is necessary, leading to inner strength.
Through these messages, A Real Pain begs the question: Why are we so afraid to face difficult emotions? For once we do, we can decide if, when, and how to share with others. When we decide to wisely share, the experience itself is the highlight. This process of deep, respectful listening, coupled with doing all possible to rid ourselves of bias, can lead to closeness and calm, allowing the give and take of problem solving. Compromise then becomes an act of love, not submission.
Billed as a two-for-the-road dramedy, your laughter will draw you closer to serious examination of the inner worlds and outer manifestations of two cousins, raised more as brothers, who have lost touch with each other. Benji Kaplan (Culkin), is devoid of any semblance of boundary between his Self and events in the real world. His breathtaking, passionate, emotionally crippling insights have put his direction at a standstill. David Kaplan (Eisenberg) is a devoted husband and father who cannot access emotion. He is tied to a NYC tech job that offers little satisfaction and suffers from an anxiety disorder and OCD.
Following Benji’s suicide attempt, which we learn has occurred before the film’s story begins, David consents to a trip to Poland to visit the childhood home of their late grandmother, Dory, who was “blunt and tough” and sure her survival was due to “a thousand miracles.”
Using a fund left by Dory for this purpose, Benji and David join a tour concentrating on Holocaust events and impact, led by James (Will Sharpe), the most decent and earnest of men. James is Christian, the holder of overwhelming facts, and completely left brained. The other members of the tour group are Marcia (Jennifer Grey ), Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan), Diane (Liza Sadovy), and Mark (Daniel Oreskes). Mark has no patience for Benji’s outbursts. Diane constantly urges his calm compassion, with the suggestion that she would like her husband to be more cognizant of her emotional Self.
The group visits Lublin, once known as the “Jewish Oxford,” where signs of this status are non-existent, and the only synagogue is on the second floor of an unhospitable complex. When visiting a cemetery, followed by dinner, and at Majdanek concentration camp, telling eruptions as well as breakthroughs occur. The complex relationship between the cousins, and a love that binds them, become further nuanced as they leave the group to reach their destination, Dory’s home before she and her family were taken to Majdanek, where all but Dory died.
In essence, A Real Pain is many things–an exploration of Benji and David’s inner world, an examination of the complexity of family, and concentration on both the impact of the Holocaust and its role in Jewish identity. The agonizing question the film faces in its focus on the Jewish diaspora is how one can assimilate according to private decisions, after all one’s ancestors have endured. The audience experiences an undeniable, impenetrable link between their grandmother’s roots and their own lives and survival.
For me, this concentration moves toward addressing individual trauma, such as the impact of evil isms that surround us, and those endured by other cultures, such as the hells of Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Rwanda, Cambodia, the Middle East–the list goes on and on.
My life has taught me that regardless of how hard we try, we can never truly, profoundly understand in full dimension the pain and horror another endures. What we can do is promise to be there, listen deeply, empathize, and professionally extend all we possibly can. A Real Pain offers a moving, extraordinary step in this direction.
SaraKay Smullens' (MSW, LCSW, BCD) best selling book Burnout and Self-Care in Social Work, Edition 2 (NASW Press, 2021) grew from her researched award winning article in The New Social Worker, “What I Wish I Had Known.” SaraKay has worked with women enduring domestic violence for more than 30 years, which led to her identification of invisible cycles of emotional abuse, always part of sexual and physical violence, but deserving their own codification. In 1995, with the support of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, she initiated the Sabbath of Domestic Peace Coalition, a diverse, multicultural bonding of religious leaders, the domestic violence community, social workers, physicians, attorneys, volunteers, and law enforcement officials who identified clergy as "a missing link" in addressing the complexities of the virulent epidemic of domestic violence, which prayer alone could not solve. The Coalition held trainings for clergy and parishioners throughout Philadelphia and surrounding areas. Its yearly non-denominational prayer service was attended by hundreds. After several years, the SDP Coalition was able to disband as individual faith communities and houses of worship incorporated their mission.