And the Winner Is...A Real Pain

Awards love is a lock for the Jesse Eisenberg-Kieran Culkin triumph about odd-couple cousins in Poland

- MARA REINSTEIN

On a wintry Saturday afternoon in Utah at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, a sorta-comedy about the power of empathy premiered to a prolonged standing ovation. The movie got snapped up for $10 million, and star-screenwriter-director Jesse Eisenberg won an award for his poignant script. Finally, A Real Pain (in theaters Nov. 1) has arrived on the big screen and it remains one of the year's best.

Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin play cousins who join a tour group in Poland to honor the homeland of their recently deceased grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. Eisenberg's David is a brittle Brooklyn husband and father taking a pill for his OCD. Then there's Culkin's Benji.