Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg at London Film Festival launch
Succession star praised for emotional film role
Getty Images A Real Pain stars Succession's Kieran Culkin (left) and The Social Network's Jesse Eisnenberg
Actors Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg have reunited on the red carpet at the London Film Festival to launch their latest film, a comedic spin on family and grief. Culkin is best known for playing Roman Roy in the Emmy-winning Succession, while Eisenberg shot to fame playing Mark Zuckerberg in 2010's The Social Network. The pair's new film A Real Pain, which is written and directed by Eisenberg, has been widely praised at film festivals and could have an outside chance of making waves in awards season. Although the film looks like a standard bro-comedy from the trailer, it punches well above its weight and has more depth than audiences might expect.
Searchlight The duo play two cousins travelling across Poland after the death of their grandmother
Eisenberg and Culkin play two cousins who have very different temperaments. While Eisenberg's character David is cerebral and family-oriented, Culkin's Benji is haphazard and rebellious. The pair are brought together for a visit to Poland following the death of their grandmother, a Jew who escaped the Holocaust and built a new life in the US. Using the money their grandmother left specifically for the trip, David and Benji travel across the country together as part of a tour group, breaking off occasionally to find out about her life, while processing their grief in different ways. The film also stars British actor Will Sharpe as the tour guide and Dirty Dancing's Jennifer Grey as one of the other tourists. The two US actors walked the red carpet ahead of the film's UK premiere at the London Film Festival.
Getty Images The film is written and directed by Eisenberg, who also co-stars
Getty Images Culkin walked the red carpet with his wife Jazz Charton, who ensured the actor was looking his best
Getty Images The film also stars US actress Jennifer Grey, who is best known for Dirty Dancing
Searchlight The film looks like a bro comedy from the trailer, but has more depth than audiences may expect
Despite being a tight 90 minutes, A Real Pain packs in a lot of issues, hooking viewers in with snappy jokes which mask deeper themes that gradually emerge over the course of the film. For viewers who found last year's awards player The Zone of Interest hard going, A Real Pain tackles a not-dissimilar subject in a much more accessible way. It is beautifully directed, bringing viewers along for the ride on a trip across Poland. The country's often charming scenery in the early parts of the film starkly contrasts with an affecting later visit to the Majdanek concentration camp and the house their grandmother had to leave behind.
Searchlight One critic described the film as "understated, funny, and gradually heart-swelling"
Asked about working with Culkin on A Real Pain, Eisenberg told Esquire: "I really don?t like improv, but Kieran is such an unusual performer. "He would say things that deviated from the script, and a lot of times they were just better. "When I first heard something that was a deviation, it rang a false note for me because I had to look at the script for so long. But in the editing room we ended up going with some of Keiran?s improvs because they just felt natural to him."
Getty Images L-R: Jennifer Grey, Kieran Culkin, Jesse Eisenberg, Will Sharpe and Kurt Egyiawan
