Kieran Culkin is a master of making people uncomfortable in exclusive A Real Pain clip

A Real Pain stars Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg as mismatched cousins on a trip through Poland.

By Emma Keates | October 30, 2024 | 10:00am

Photo: Searchlight Pictures

Film News A Real Pain

Kieran Culkin is a master of making people uncomfortable in exclusive A Real Pain clip

At least two films vying for awards this season take on the generational repercussions of the Holocaust, but their respective treatments of that particular horror could not be more distinct. While The Brutalist is grand, sweeping, and (for the most part) deadly serious, A Real Pain takes on the concept of inherited trauma with wit and pitch-black humor. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone—it is a Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg movie, after all.

That sardonic tone immediately comes through in a new clip from the film, which The A.V. Club can exclusively debut. Fresh off his Emmy-winning run in Succession, Kieran Culkin proves yet again that there’s no one better at creating awkward and uncomfortable (but intensely watchable) tension onscreen.

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In the clip, Culkin’s character, Benji, is on a guided tour through Poland with his cousin and polar opposite, David (Eisenberg), to honor their late grandfather’s memory. Clearly agitated, he leans over to David and asks if he thinks they should move to another train car. Upon hearing David’s baffled response (they paid for it!), he bursts out, “Dude, we are Jews on a train in Poland. Fucking think about it.” At this point, the cousins’ argument catches the attention of their guide (Will Sharpe), which prompts Benji to dig his heels in even further. “Is anyone else, like, feeling this right now?” he asks the group. “Does no one else see the irony here? Like eating fancy food and sitting up here when 80 years ago we would have been herded into the backs of these fucking things like cattle?”

“Why doesn’t anyone want to hear it?” he continues. It’s like if Roman Roy had a soul.

A Real Pain was produced by Dave McCary and Emma Stone under their Fruit Tree banner, along with Eisenberg, Ali Herting, Jennifer Semler, and Ewa Puszczynska. The film premieres in theaters November 1.