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The original was posted on /r/movies by /u/rekemball on 2025-01-29 19:18:03+00:00.

I just want to put this out there, because I haven’t seen it discussed anywhere and want to see what people think. Benji represents David’s repressed pain in this movie. Literally, his pain made real. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, so I can’t remember every detail but I’m going to do my best to make my case.

When they were younger, David was a boy would cry at everything, and the two characters were constantly together, but as David grew older, he left his pain (Benji) behind in order to create a life for himself. David never goes to visit his cousin, and although he’s open to short visits from Benji in NYC, it is one thing to allow yourself to feel bits and pieces of your trauma as though it’s a visitor in your home, it isnt the same as fully engaging with it on its own terms. When their grandmother dies, David arrives at the airport and finds his cousin waiting for him. They go to Poland and, as David sees the horrors that his people went through, he reconnects with his repressed pain (Benji). Benji, literally an emotion in human form, is difficult to deal with for the tour group, embarrassing to David, who constantly tries to tamp him down, but ultimately binds the group together through their shared experience of him. David becomes a fuller version of himself for having embraced that part of his identity, and when they return home, he offers to come see Benji, who refuses the offer. The lesson is that once you open yourself up to your trauma, it loses much of its power and urgency. Benji sits back down in the airport where he started, waiting for the next time David needs him.

Also significant, but couldn’t find a place for it here: Benji lived with their grandmother until her death, a woman who, as a Holocaust survivor, could never have lived without the pain of that experience.