Comic neuroses in Jesse Eisenberg's 'A Real Pain'

Welcome to The Reel Schmooze with ToI film reviewer Jordan Hoffman and host Amanda Borschel-Dan, where we bring you all the entertainment news and film reviews a Jew can use.

This week, we hear scintillating updates on Hoffman’s test drive of his new snow blower before launching into our two Schmoovies of the week.

WATCH the full episode here:

First, we discuss “33 photos from the Ghetto,” which explores the saga of a trove of previously unpublished photographs of the Nazis brutally suppressing the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Revolt that was captured in secret by a Polish firefighter while German forces set the Jewish ghetto ablaze. We learn how the images were accidentally discovered — and how they complement another set that was sent to the United States decades earlier.

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The film, distributed on HBO Max since International Holocaust Remembrance Day, evokes mixed feelings from our team.

We then turn to Jesse Eisenberg’s 2024 “A Real Pain,” which stars Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin as cousins who, after the death of their beloved Holocaust-survivor grandmother, team up for a roots tour through Poland to see where she was born. It was a second viewing of the film for our duo and one of them had a change of heart from the repeat performance.

Check out the one “meh” and one “not bad” film (our highest mark) in this week’s The Reel Schmooze.

The Reel Schmooze is produced by Ari Schlacht and can be found wherever you get your podcasts.