A Real Pain

The AU Review’s Best Films of 2024

The year that was 2024 in film. Gladicked wasn’t quite Barbenheimer 2.0. Scary movies ruled all (wait, is horror back?). Audiences weren’t Kraven’ superheroes – unless they were Hugh Jackman. Nicholas Hoult quietly emerged as the year’s most reliable leading man. And, like last year, originality was far more satiating. Here at the AU Review…

Peter Gray

Interview: Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Jennifer Grey and Will Sharpe on A Real Pain; “It’s always hard and awkward to try and commemorate something with reverence in a modern world that doesn’t care about your own personal grief.”

Written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain tells of mismatched cousins David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) as they reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the odd-couple’s old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history, setting the scene for a…

Peter Gray

Film Review: A Real Pain; Jesse Eisenberg’s sophomore feature as a filmmaker is a real triumph

Though there’s the sense that, initially, the characterisation of Benji Kaplan (Kieran Culkin) in A Real Pain is to purely lean into the personality-driven descriptiveness of such a title, writer/director Jesse Eisenberg has other plans in helping us as an audience empathise with his plight. Benji hones the type of energy that can be described…

Peter Gray