A Real Pain centers a familial relationship that’s rarely the primary focus of art: cousins. 

Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin’s characters are more than friends…but less than brothers. They share ancestral DNA…but without the unified upbringing of siblings. They could feel a familial obligation to maintain a connection…but it’s more optional than the imperative often felt if raised under one roof. Cousins choose to be close, even without the forced corporeal intimacy of having the same nuclear family.

A Real Pain offers a contemporary portrait on the nature of one such cousinly duo.