A Real Pain swings too hard the other way. It’s the problem that Nate brought up in his comment about Hit Man: We don’t need characters narrating a film’s themes. Eisenberg, co-starring as David, has a scene where he explains to a group of people what makes his cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin) tick: He’s an unfiltered whirlwind (a real pain), but underneath it all, he has a big heart that’s really aching (a real pain). WOW! If only you’d spent the last hour showing us that exactly, Mr. Eisenberg!?

Compare that to the absolutely terrific scene earlier in the film where Benji poses with a statue and ropes in the rest of the tourist group while David awkwardly stands taking pictures. It’s funny, it’s uncomfortable, it tells us a lot about both leads, and nobody states aloud that the moment reveals the double-sided nature of Benji’s whimsical life philosophy: spontaneous moments of engagement with the world around him couple with a narcissistic obliviousness of other people’s boundaries.

That step backwards in audience trust is one of the few negative things I have to say about A Real Pain, which is otherwise one of the standout dramedies of the year. We follow David and Benji during a trip to Poland to see some Holocaust memorials, as well as the childhood home of their grandmother. This mix of normalcy — routine, rehearsed travel tourism — with grief both narrow and monnumental — the passing of a grandparent, The Holocaust — could easily have been cloying or overcooked, but it isn’t. A Real Pain treads a perfect tone: it has a delicate touch that’s neither too comic nor too dreary. The scenario illuminates character struggles and contradictions, especially the contrast between David and Benji who we repeatedly hear were so similar when they were younger.

I also have to admit that this film made me engage with the historical fact of the Holocaust in more affecting ways that other, more dramatic films on the subject have, including The Zone of Interest. The close sequencing of David and Benji first viewing the museum exhibit of shoes of gas chamber victims as Culkin breaks down crying, shortly before the extremely ordinary visit to their grandmother’s childhood house and encounter with a neighbor, crystallizes a bunch of powerful ideas. Societal and cultural tragedy eventually heals back into routine, transactional daily life whether or not we comprehend it. Every pair of shoes had a person who walked in them, and each of those people had a doorstep and a grumpy old man living across the street. That old man was once a confused young adult like David and Benji; and he was lucky enough to survive long enough to grumble at the tourists.

A Real Pain renders a very specific kind of Jewish identity, especially for David. Eisenberg displays a stereotypically New York Jewishness complete with a Woody Allen-esque neurosis, but sanded down and colored as “functional” and “closed off.” His Jewishness isn’t the most dominant identity of his life (being a dad is), but he is still recognizably rooted in the Jewish secular culture. David medicates for OCD throughout the film, amplifying the sense that he has steered away from his dark and complex impulses, the kind that drive Benji. Could their difference in demeanor really be as simple as David popping a daily pill?

The film is remarkably attractive for the genre. Of course, this kind of Sundance-core slice of life has notoriously low standards in visual profile, so take that as a slight backhanded compliment. But Eisenberg and co., including cinematographer Michal Dymek who is a rising talent in European cinema, deploy some lovely lighting and coloring. The photography in Poland is deeply inviting. One friend pointed out that the Polish tourism industry helped fund filming, and they get their money’s worth: I definitely imagined myself going on this tour as I watched, and I have no family or cultural connection to Polish Judaism.

The supporting cast is strong as well. Will Sharpe of The White Lotus is great as a not-quite-smarmy tour guide, and Jennifer Grey is a treat as a fellow tourgoer caught between nursing her own pain and humoring Benji. But the show really belongs to Culkin and Eisenberg. If you’ve ever been unsure of Eisenberg as an actor (full disclosure: I’ve always been sure), then this is a definite notch in the “success” column. Although he sells the big moments and breakdowns well, it’s the subtle stuff that really shines: the glances and hesitations are what color David’s personality.

Of course, awards bodies are giving Culkin the lion’s share of the attention, and he deserves it. I find the character to be a bit uneven in the writing, especially as it comes to overplaying his psychology and overexplaining his feelings, but he’s just wonderful in execution. I’ve only seen a bit of Succession so I can’t use that as evidence, but A Real Pain makes a case that Culkin is a world-class talent in both comic and dramatic acting; and, to the benefit of A Real Pain, in blending those modes. He’ll be among my end-of-year acting honorees.

There is a slight sense of deflation in the film’s ending, a purposeful anti-climax and notion of “so what now” that the film doesn’t quite navigate. The film’s best scenes, like a wander through a street market where Culkin purchases a silly hat as a hysterical juxtaposition to the serious content of the conversation, are interspersed throughout the runtime in an even blend with the merely good ones. It’s not like Aftersun, which builds to a finale where all the cresting emotions come together. But even among the just-fine scenes, almost none of them are bad. A Real Pain doesn’t quite make it into the dramedy annals, but it’s a major success, a showcase for a phenomenal performance, and one of my favorite films of the year.

He does so in a uniquely-flavored and memorable coming-of-age story. The film centers around Ziggy (Finn Wolfhard) and his mother, Evelyn (Julianne Moore). Ziggy is a high school student and a modestly successful musician who builds his audience by performing live streams for international audiences. Every week, he performs live for fans in remote countries who are drawn to his authentic style.

Meanwhile, Evelyn is a social worker, and by all accounts a very good one, protecting the lives of dozens of domestic abuse victims. She runs a busy shelter yet she clearly has a hard time connecting on a personal and conversational level with the people around her.

But Evelyn and Ziggy, despite both being accomplished and respected from the outside, feel a missing piece. It quickly becomes obvious to the viewers that what they need is each other: Ziggy is searching for some purpose beyond his music, or rather some way to grow his music into something more purposeful. Ziggy hilariously keeps using the word “political” to describe his desire for his actions to resonate beyond his tiny sphere. Evelyn, on the other hand, wants a soul to nurture, a more personal mentorship than the ones she provides in her day-to-day job.

Each of them spend most of the movie chasing after the wrong person to fill those missing pieces. Whenever they get close to realizing that the other might be able to provide some happiness in their lives, they start bickering and withdrawing from each other. The mother-son love is buried very deeply, but it’s very much there, with only some combination of maturity and distance likely to reveal it. In this way, it actually reminded me of Lady Bird, another film about a fraught child-mother relationship that’s built around a core of inextinguishable love manifesting itself as resentment.

For Ziggy, the path to enlightenment and happiness runs through his crush, Lila (Alisha Boe), whom he is attracted to because she is brilliant and beautiful, but even moreso because she is socially conscious and driven. She writes a poem about the colonization of the Marshall Islands, and — in one of the movie’s most bizarre and memorable scenes, the one I’ve seen referenced most often in social media and reviews of this film — he masturbates while reading the poem over and over to himself.

Evelyn, on the other hand, finds herself drawn to Kyle (Billy Bryk), a boy staying at her shelter with his battered mother. Kyle is empathetic and humble, but also quite gifted. After high school, Kyle plans to become an auto mechanic, but Evelyn makes it her mission to convince Kyle to go to college and pursue social work like her. The film is well aware of the creepy, lustful undertones of Evelyn’s pursuit of Kyle, even though it is a platonic and supportive affection. Eisenberg and Moore get some squirmy laughs out of this tension.

When You Finish Saving the World is a comedy, but an intense and cringe-inducing one. Like Funny Pages from earlier in the year, it will undoubtedly alienate significant portions of its potential audience by presenting oblivious and unlikeable characters with unflinching directness. It also puts a cap on how much I can look forward to re-watching this one: It’s one thing to admire and appreciate the characterization of obnoxious dingbats; it’s another to actually enjoy the time spent with them. But the movie, overall, works thanks to the crisp writing and acting.

Wolfhard and Moore are both doing strong and idiosyncratic character work. I haven’t seen enough of Wolfhard’s other performances to know if he this is just the way he carries himself, or if he is indeed an excellent actor, but he’s quite convincing and memorable as the aloof Ziggy. Moore, unsurprisingly, crushes the role, making Evelyn her own, neurotic creation. She’s absolutely terrific, quite possibly the best in the world right now at capturing “difficult” but kind-hearted women.

When You Finish the World is overstuffed with clever narrative ironies. I really got a kick out of Eisenberg’s writing and storytelling. For example, Ziggy, the oblivious goober singing songs about teen love, is actually connecting more deeply with people in other countries than his socially conscious, pro-justice peers talking in echo chambers. And Evelyn treats her nurturing of Kyle like she would an affair; making up lies to leave the house for a few hours, growing desperate when she’s “discovered” by Kyle’s mom, etc.

As a director, it’s harder to make too much of an evaluation of Eisenberg. Just like Lady Bird resulted in Greta Gerwig getting a bit overhyped when most of that movie’s success came in acting, writing, and production design, so I’m hesitant to assign Eisenberg too much hype as a “next big thing.” But there’s no question he holds the film together quite well, and I’d love to see him take a few more stabs at dramedies like this. I suspect it’s not a coincidence that this movie is the kind he has often been cast in — Eisenberg would have been the top candidate to play Ziggy if this had been made ten years ago.

It’s not to all tastes, but When You Finish Saving the World is fresh, acerbic, and one of the better debut films of the past year.