10 Amazing Recent Movies That Were 90 Minutes Or Less
2. A Real Pain
Jesse Eisenberg's second directorial effort has earmarked him as one of Hollywood's most promising on-the-rise filmmakers.
A Real Pain is a superbly acted road movie in which Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin star as a pair of Jewish American cousins who travel to Poland to pay respects to their beloved late grandmother.
For a film running just 89 minutes in length, A Real Pain tackles some seriously heady subject matter - most of all The Holocaust and the modern Jewish experience, but also on a broader level how we all decide to deal with pain and anguish.
Eisenberg and Culkin's central chalk-and-cheese dynamic is hypnotically compelling throughout, while Eisenberg's script finds a near-perfect balance between affecting pathos and disarming comedy.
That Eisenberg achieves all of this in such a brief runtime, without it all ever feeling rushed no less, is a testament to the shrewd economy of his filmmaking.