Every now and then I watch a movie that I had resolved to avoid. Such is the life of a projectionist who, at times, is too burned out to write or read as I often do.

Maybe it’s my age, but the poster and the ads for A Real Pain led me to interpret the title as a warning label. Nor was I at all curious about Keiran Culkin’s transition from child-actor into roles calling for F-bombs or a film directed by Jessie Eisenberg, the actor who played the annoying Mark Zuckerberg and starred in the even-more-annoying Zombieland.

But into the theater I went after putting the money away and locking the door. Within ten minutes there were at least ten times when Benji’s (Culkin’s) F-bombs might have sent me back out, but I love cinematography that turns a place into a character. Add a soundtrack that was all Chopin ranging from contemplative to thrilling, and I couldn’t leave the guided “Holocaust Tour” that brought Warsaw’s history to life.

Benji is the title character, relentless in his slapstick jokes and upsetting, verging on torturous complaints. Like his cousin Dave (Eisenberg) and others on the tour, I was tolerating him in the opening scenes. That includes a zany photo session Benji stages with the monument for the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 when Jews resisted the Nazis. “Isn’t that disrespectful,” Dave nervously suggests, but their fellow tourists join in one-by-one, breaking out of shells in which they appear to have been for the first time since long before the tour began.

Part of me wanted to walk out as soon as that scene began, but like the retired couple from Shaker Heights, the recent divorcee from LA, the theological student from Winnipeg, and the British tour guide himself, I began appreciating Benji’s antics and diatribes. And it’s right about there you realize you are watching and hearing an examination of the dueling roles of honesty and politeness–and between exuberance and inhibition–in personal relationships.

Writer Eisenberg (yes, he also did the script) shows admirable attention to detail, as when we hear “Shaker Heights” without any mention of Cleveland or Ohio. As much as the next bronze placard the tour members will pause to read on a sidewalk, the name evokes a memory for Americans of a certain age: Shaker Heights was the home of one of the Israeli athletes killed at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

A Real Pain never imposes horror on us, but juxtaposes it with day to day life. Anyone who saw last year’s Oscar-nominated The Zone of Interest will be reminded of the Nazi officer’s family living just over Auschwitz’ wall. Real Pain‘s scene of the tour’s visit to a gas chamber begins with a walk across flat, barren land with Warsaw far back on the horizon. Suggests the tour guide, “Imagine what it would have been like to live just three miles away while this was in operation.” Inside of “this,” we see a corrosive blue stain on the walls and ceilings, as well as a cage stuffed from floor to ceiling with shoes.

Benji is conflicted to the point of contradiction, and with Cousin Dave the film might be titled “21st Century Odd Couple.” Benji can improvise a comedy at a memorial of a tragedy, but he goes to pieces in the train taking them to the next stop. He disappears when the others blithely plan their next day. Dave finds him seated in another car. Cries Benji, “Why does everybody have to be so happy?” It’s a scene that that could have played in other award-winning road-trip buddy films from Thelma & Louise to Little Miss Sunshine and from Rainman to Nebraska.

Echos of past films and literature are rich. Before it’s over, you might wonder if you’ve just seen a modern take on The Canterbury Tales crossed with The Diary of Ann Frank and a protagonist that joins the ranks of Ishmael, Huck Finn, Holden Caulfield, and Dean Moriarty as all-American misfits.

Had I known that ahead of time, I’d have been as eager to see A Real Pain as I now am to see A Complete Unknown.

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