Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Jesse Eisenberg & Kieran Culkin on ‘A Real Pain’

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Our guests this week were ‘A Real Pain’...just joking, Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin were actually really nice... They sit down with Simon to discuss the comedy-drama, directed, written, produced by and starring Eisenberg alongside Culkin. They play two mismatched cousins David and Benji on a tour of Poland, the ancestral home of their late-grandmother, where they hope to reconnect with their Jewish roots—and each other. With Benji lacking in a social filer (as, delightfully, is Kieran Culkin is in real life—just ask Simon!) their trip isn’t as straightforward as the uptight David planned. Hear what Mark thought of the film, plus reviews of ‘Maria’—Pablo Larraín’s biopic of legendary opera singer Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie), reflecting on her public and private life in its last days in 1970s Paris—and ‘Babygirl’, the psychosexual thriller starring Nicole Kidman as a high-powered but privately dissatisfied CEO embroiled in an affair with Harris Dickinson’s much younger intern at her firm. Not forgetting your takes on ‘Nosferatu’, ‘We Live In Time’ and more from our bursting postbag of correspondence. Keep it coming! Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): Maria Review: 05:39 Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg: 27:31 A Real Pain Review: 44:07 Laughter lift: 50:00 Babygirl Review: 54:17 You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [e-mail] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, this show is sponsored by NordVPN. Hey Mark, you know what people say about this time of year? That it's perfect for huddling together with a warm blanket, a mug of cocoa, and the best movies and of course movie podcasts around? Well, ideal for taking an early ski trip to L'Alp de Huy. What's wrong with the Alps? Yeah, well, I was going to say that it's dank, dark and miserable, but you convinced me really. And if you're here or there, whatever you're watching, Pleasures, Nord can help. It connects you to servers in 111 countries.

You can use it on up to 11 devices and unlock content from around the world. Whether you're under a woollen blanket or gliding across a blanket of snow, Nord keeps you safe from trackers and hackers by hiding your details when you're connected to public Wi-Fi, built-in threat protection and even dark web alerts. This January with our link you get an additional four months free on the two-year plan and with Nord's 30-day money back guarantee there's zero risk. Check out the link in the episode description. Very good. And here we are.

And there you are. And here we are. Have we started? I don't know. Who knows? But if this is part of the podcast, then it would appear that we have started and you're looking tip top. Am I?

Yeah, I would just say so. Before we start, I would like to read to you from a book which is called Inside the Political Mind. I'm just holding it up there. Okay. The Human Side of Politics and How It Shapes Development by Greg Power. Right. Why have efforts to strengthen the quality of governance so often failed in some of the world's most troubled states? Because they almost always ignore the human side of politics. Okay, so that's what the book is all about. Okay.

So in the acknowledgement section, you know, friends, family, all that kind of stuff, and then it signs up. So here we go at the end. There are far too many people to list, but as the book makes plain, I have particular affection for and commitment to Iraq, and I must pay tribute to three of the key staff in the Iraqi parliament who were the first to welcome me when I initially landed in Baghdad in 2008. Thanks for your friendship and hello to Jason." In fact, it says, and finally, of course, hello to Jason. So hello to Greg Power, definitely one of the church, as we seem to be infecting the political brain. Something I'm all in favor of.

Because we would be a force for good, as we've mentioned many times before, we would like to take power and run a few countries and if they don't want us to run it, we could just buy it and see what happens after that. Sorry about that. 2025. Well. An email from Benjamin Fujita-Summers. Thank you, Benjamin. Long-term listener on morning hour and a half school run in Dubai, or at least it feels like I'm a long-term listener.

A few years ago, I had the discussion with a colleague about how long into the new year do you keep wishing people a happy new year? Especially in the cultural melting pot of Dubai, with Islamic, Orthodox, and Chinese calendars all very present. I mean, it's complicated enough here. In Dubai, it sounds very complicated.

So we kept wishing each other happy new year throughout January. And the next thing we knew, it was 40 degrees and high summer. As people returned from holidays in September, we were still wishing each other happy new year. And in November meeting, still begun with this greeting. We ground out the year,

including a final SMS greeting just before midnight. Come the first day back in the studio, the following year, we eyed each other warily and said nothing and passed each other in silence. I'm yet to hear in this year." So that's an interesting thing from Benjamin. So he's just carried on saying happy new year throughout the year. When's the Chinese new year throughout the year. When is Chinese new year? Personally, you're already beyond my, uh, you know, sphere of expertise. Um, it's clearly they just went with it. Just, just keep saying it all the time. So we, we could adopt that.

We could just say, we could just wish people a happy new year. Okay. All year. All right. Well, shall we try and see how long it lasts before we either forget or it becomes incredibly irritating? 29th of January, Chinese New Year. So we could, okay, well, let's just keep going until people decide it's too irritating.

But they can always FF plus 30 plus 30 plus 30 plus 30 to get past this bit. So anyway, inspired by Benjamin Fujita Summers, Mark, happy new year. Happy new year, Simon. So that's my preamble. What are you going to be doing later in this show, Mark? Well, I'm very glad you asked me, Simon, because I'm going to be reviewing Baby Girl, which is the new Nicole Kidman film, Maria with Angelina Jolie, and A Real Pain with our special guests.

Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin. And can I recommend the interview? It's worth hanging around for. I don't know if FF plus 30 all the way through it because it's an interesting experience. It was an interesting experience for me. I think it'd be an interesting experience for you to listen to it. Uh, plenty of extras for the Vanguard, including these bonus reviews. Uh, the girl with the needle, which is a very disturbing new film.

And there is a reissue because it's 30 years old. Yikes. Of Sir Sevenen. Okay. And you say it like that because there's a seven instead of a big. Because it's written S-E-7-E-N and it was pretty much the beginning of all that fant four stick. Yes, that's true. I remember that. Also, our special edition recommendation feature weekend watchlist TV movie of the week, not list. One frame back is related to Maria, which we'll get to in just a moment.

Some supplementary watching options for films about opera singers. Plus your questions answered as best we can in questions, Schmeshtians. You can get all of that via Apple podcasts or head to extra takes.com for non fruit related devices, a seven day free trial. This is extraordinary. That's available. And if you are already a Vanguard Easter as always, we salute you and happy new year. Obviously this is where I would read the opening email from Benjita. You were just shaking it up for 25. You were giving it like a whole new vibe. Yes. I will next week return to conformity and just follow the instructions that I'm handed. Anyway, if you want to get in touch, correspondents at kermitamaya.com, we'd like to hear your

thoughts on anything and everything that we're waffling on about. For example, this movie, which is out this week. Maria, which is a biographical drama from Pablo Lorrainion who made Jackie about Jackie Kennedy and Spencer about Princess Diana. This is the third film in a sort of unofficial trilogy of very significant 20th century women. This time, the opera diva Maria Callas played by Angelinaolie, also features Howard Buegner as Aristotle Onassis, who of course weirdly gives you a connection to Jackie because Jackie Kennedy goes on to have a relationship with Onassis who then goes on to have a relationship, blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah. Scripted by Stephen Knight, whose credits include Dirty Pretty Things, Eastern Promises, the David Cronenberg film which I like very much, and more recently Spencer. The narrative is framed by this fairly familiar device. The device starts with the discovery of Maria Callas' dead body in 1977 September, and it then goes back for the last week of her life. During that week, she tries to find out whether she still has a singing voice, whilst also slipping into flashbacks

of her life as a superstar. We see her in her apartment where her loyal butler in her house made a fretting about her health, her behavior. She's constantly telling them to move a piano from one room to another. She's arranged to sing at a closed venue where there's a pianist who has promised that nobody else will hear it, it's just him. And when she starts singing, he says, I'm hearing Maria, I need to hear Callus. And then Lorraine cuts between her failing voice now and the soaring voice of the past. She's also in this packed final week taking part in an interview with a young filmmaker played by Cody Smith McPhee, who is called Mandrax, which of course is the name of the drug she is taking,

to blur, which blurs the lines between reality and imagination. So she wanders around the streets of her neighborhood with Mandrax, the filmmaker, holding forth on her life and occasionally drifting into these hallucinogenic reveries in which an orchestra will magically appear in the rain. Here's a clip. This is the part of the film where you're expected to sing, Maria. So, sing. L'Calis

is expected to sing. No excuses. No diva-imagined sickness. Not like Rome, not like Covent Garden, not like New York. I will sing when I am ready to sing. That sounds like crackly 78 music as opposed to the rain that's falling at the time. I think that's the case. Anyway, so Jolie was nominated for a Golden Globe. I think she has a shot at an Oscar nomination. General opinion seems to be that her performance is great even if the movie is disappointing. I disagree. I think that her performance is disappointing as well as the film. Watching this, it seems amazing to me that the same person that made Jackie and Spencer made something as lumpen and contrived as this. I know the critics have generally quite liked it. The

main problem is the script. The script is absolutely crammed the kind of toe-curling one-liners, you know, of which I need to hear Callus is by no means the worst. The device of having the film director, you know, walking around with her, who's sort of the embodiment of the hallucinations, and at one point says, have I told you I've fallen in love with you? And she says, oh, that happens a lot. And then there's a bit when the doctor says to her, you know, Madam Callis, I'm begging you to see reason. And she says, my life is opera. There is no reason in opera. I mean, okay, fine.

I do understand that she was a kind of larger than life figure and the whole sort of, you know, the diva thing. But I also understand that even if any of the lines are drawn from reality, the way in which they appear in the film is utterly ridiculous. There's a bit when she says, when she says, I didn't have a baby because my body declined the invitation to make another self because my body knew I was a tiger. Now, I don't know where that line came from. I don't know whether it's a quote, whether it's made. It doesn't make any difference. In the film, it's just ridiculous.

And, you know, Angelina Jolie gives it some welly, but she never looks like anything other than Angelina Jolie giving it some welly. Worst of all, and it pains me to say this, it's pretty dull and pretty uninvolving. Now, this isn't the first Maria Callas biopic to floor a talented director. Zeffirelli made an absolute load of old poo in 2002 called Callas Forever, which was also set at the end of her life in 77 with, I think it's Fanny Audon. And, and Ken Russell was involved with a project that Faye Dunaway was

involved in for years and years and didn't, I don't think Ken's involvement was on and off anyway. So it's not like people haven't tried to do this before. But the idea that Pavlo Lorraine could do it and do it honestly as badly as this is disappointing. Now, it may well be that some people will see this and they'll like it and I'll be very interested to hear if we get any correspondents, you know, bigging it up next week. But I thought it was just like, it was just the most lumpen and frankly, kind of ludicrous, you know, end of life biopic with flashbacks and lots and lots of acting pills consumed by everyone. Yeah, didn't like it at all.

Can she sing? Well, there are bits that are her singing and then most of it which is callous singing. I mean, obviously nobody can do callous. So I think what they've done, I think, is like what they did with Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. There's a lot of miming. I mean, there's a lot of miming. In a way, that's the least of the problems. That is the least of the problems. It's like people keep talking about the Bob Dylan biopic that's coming up with Timothy Chalamet and saying he did all his own vocals, which he does. But the heart of the movie isn't really to do with that.

I think the main problem with Maria is just, it's very badly written, like very badly written, which is surprising because he's a very good writer. The box office top 10 this week, at Umpty Seven, Wallace and Gromit, Vengeance Most Foul, which has done fantastically well. I mean, it's not there now because it's clearly, it's been on TV and it's sort of on Netflix, it's on iPlayer, I would think. So you have lots of reasons, lots of ways to see it. It was a huge hit when it went out on Christmas day. Apparently it was like one of the most watched things.

It was absolutely massive, enormous, enormous audience. So congratulations to Nick Park and to Merlin and to everyone at Ardman for once again going, this is how you do it. Number 11, Nickel Boys. I really like Nickel Boys. Your interview was absolutely fascinating with the director. I do think you're a Mel Ross.

I mean, what was great about the interview was he talked really well about the process involved. And yet when you watch the film, you're not overly conscious of it. You just feel like it just reaches out from the screen and grabs you by the heartstrings. I think it's a really fine piece of work. There is one thing that I had written down. I've still got my notes here that I wanted to talk to Rommel Ross about. And It's bizarre how this sequence has stayed with me, but it's not really important to the whole story, but there is a time-lack sequence which is filmed

out of a boxcar on the railroad. You see this, I think, two or three times. It's really stuck with me. Apparently, Rimmel Ross, to get this right, was shipped himself from Rhode Island to Alabama in a box. So over about 36 hours, 48 hours or something, just to get that bit right. Anyway, we didn't get there, but it doesn't surprise me having spoken to him, but it was a fascinating conversation. Do you think that's a disappointing appearance at 11? It was 18 in America. I mean, look, it was never going to be a huge hit. It's had fantastic reviews. It's had really, really fantastic reviews and deservedly so. I mean, I suppose over the Christmas period, people were watching blockbusters really, weren't they? I mean, I, you know, yeah.

And it's not a blockbuster. No, it's not, but it's a very, very, it's a very fine film. Conclave is at number 10. Which of course is, you know, lots of great acting, brilliant sound design, as you said in that interview, because it is, I watched it again over the last week and it is true that you really can hear the shoes clicking on the marble floors because it's a set anyway. And you know, Great performances and really well written. There we go. The basis of this film is that it's got a really good script

unlike some other films. Really good script and fabulous fabric. Conclave is at 1022 in America. Number eight in America, number nine here is Gladiator 2. I was on the train down to Penzance yesterday, it's like five and a half hours. And one of the women working, working to do it better as a conductor, she said, I just have to ask you, should I go see Gladiator 2? And I said, well, you know, it's preposterous

and it's got sharks. And she went, oh, I think I'll go then. Yes. Well, I think that's the right answer. So you're right to say that, it's preposterous, it's got sharks, but you'll have a good time. Paddington in Peru is at number eight. You know, weakest of the Paddington films, but it's still a pretty high bar.

Better Man at seven. I mean, it's really interesting. Better Man has had some very, very good, I mean, some people I know think it's like one of the best films they've seen in living memory. It's real. I mean, I think some people have absolutely loved it. I like it very much. I think that the fact that Robbie is portrayed by a CGI chimpanzee on in the film works really well and you forget about it within five minutes. I mean, it is, it is over long and it is massively indulgent, but it does work. And that's really remarkable. Wicked at. Runaway hit, love it, love it, love it.

Can't wait for the second one, although we have to wait. If we keep saying Happy New Year to each other, we'll probably still be saying Happy New Year when Wicked 2 comes out. Moana 2 is at number five, it's number four in America. It's okay, was originally put together to go straight to streaming, made it into cinemas. You know, I'm sure a load of people saw it

and enjoyed it over the holiday. Sonic'm sure a load of people saw it and enjoyed it over the holiday. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is at four. Did very well, surprisingly, because... We Live in Time is a new entry, number three. Oh, have we got any emails about We Live in Time? Yes, we have, but I was just going to you first. No, that's fine. No, I was just wondering whether, because I mean, you know, we reviewed it on the show.

I think there are some really good things about it. I really believe in the relationship between the two central characters, between the characters, but Andrea Garfield and Florence Pugh. And I think the way that the time shifting of it, the shuffling of time works very intelligently, because what it means is that it's not just,

the narrative doesn't just proceed from love to tragedy, it mixes all those elements together. So I think it's a very well constructed and directed film, but the thing that really wins it over is the fact that it has those two performances. I don't think it's a masterpiece by any means. I think there are things wrong with it, but I think it is affecting. What do the emailers think? Do you think there's anyone else apart from myself who when hearing Florence Pugh hears, so what I hear in my head is Florence Pugh, Barley McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grubb. I've never thought that before, but now I will not be able to get it out of my head.

The fantastically named Merrick Angle drops us an email. Merrick says, gents, really enjoyed last week's episode. My interest was piqued by the review for the film where a mysterious stranger sucks the life out of their quivering virginal victims. I'm of course talking about we live in time. It's an odd proposition. It posits a world where glamorous bisexual Michelin-starred chefs prey on hapless Weetabix salesmen and yet through the crackling chemistry of Pugh and Garfield, some well-drawn characters and witty original dialogue, it all seemed oddly convincing and endearing until, about halfway through the film, a major

WTF moment is revealed to have Ice Skater suddenly pseudo- terminally fancy master chef. This is completely deranged. What could have been a poignant low key tale of charismatic couple going through catastrophe suddenly became rocky with an icing bag. It completely squandered any audience goodwill and more importantly, undercut the two fantastic performances by its leads. That from Merrick Angle, this from Henry. I find it incredibly rare that a film can strike a chord with such accuracy.

There was so much to relate to on a personal level in terms of our own circumstances and the intricacies with which the characters navigate overlapping life stages and challenges. The film tackles themes of love, family, ambition, sorrow, tragedy, comedy and joy in a way that feels so natural. Admittedly, without the frame of reference specifically to Florence Pugh's character struggling with cancer, I don't think that's much of a spoiler. No, it's not. Thank you. I have to say it was all dealt with note perfectly. The script felt natural, the acting expressive but never over the top and the jumping back and forth through time was done in a way that never got irritating or tiresome. No mean feat. Perhaps the only part of the film that was hard to believe was how much Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, both otherwise excellent, as you'd expect, seemed to be enjoying their

spin on a fairground carousel. Laughter, tears, and everything in between was experienced during the runtime. I would highly recommend this to anyone who seeks out emotionally resonant storytelling delivered by highly skilled filmmakers and actors. And Henry says, PS, if you're going to read this out, a quick hello to my wonderful wife, Mazz, for whom film is such an important and shared passion. And should you read this out, we may well be listening to this in a maternity ward or on speaker at home trying to get a restless baby to sleep all through

headphones during a late night feed. Say hello to baby as well as Henry and wife, Maz. Congratulations. Well, yes. So, We Live in Time is at number three. It isn't anywhere in America. I think we've now thoroughly covered it, don't you? Mephasa the Lion King is at number two. A weirdly disappointing film. I mean, your interview with Barry Jenkins was fascinating. And it was interesting hearing him talking about it as a piece of storytelling and finding connections with Moonlight.

I'm just not sold on the photore the photo realist animation of singing lions. I'm, I, I'm just not on board with it. Uh, that's number one in America. Number one here is Nosferatu, which is number three in the state. So Charlie goes first, Mark and Simon. I work. Yes. You say yes for RT, which is very, very good.

Can I repeat the joke, which isn't mine, but I got off social media, which, good. Can I repeat the joke, which isn't mine, but I got off social media, which, which, which was Nosferatu, Feratu, Nos. Yes. And here's what happened. You sent me a text of Nosferatu, Feratu, Nos. Nosferatu, Feratu, Nos. Yes. But now you're saying it in that voice. And I sent you back a thing, said, no, sorry, I don't get it. And then Simon Paul, who was in this chain said, Brucie. And I thought he meant Springsteen. And I thought, is there a Bruce Springsteen lyric which goes Nosferatu, feratu nos? I had a

very strange afternoon trying to figure that out. It was a listener doing some, a little bit of, um, no, I get it now. But when you say Brucie, I didn't immediately think Forsythe. I thought Bruce, because anyway, Charlie says, I work at picture house at fact in Liverpool. And as a big horror fan and a fan of Robert Eggers films, I was very much looking forward to the release of Nosferatu this past Wednesday. Unfortunately, our cinema rarely pulls in big crowds for horror films. Still, I expected Nosferatu to do decent, if not spectacular numbers. It's to my delight then that so far we've packed out screenings four times a day, including

some near sellouts in our biggest screens. If audience sizes keep up for two weeks, it will be our cinema's most popular film since Zone of Interest. One colleague even uttered Barbenheimer in relation to the rushes that we've had at the box office and the bar. And it's not just at our place. My brother reported packed out screenings for Nosferatu at his cinema in Finsbury Park. So the two brothers running two different cinemas. We'd love to know your thoughts on why Nosferatu is managing to pull in such impressive numbers and at such a difficult time

generally for cinemas. Perhaps the name recognition of Nosferatu and an opportune release date have something to do with it, but for what it's worth, I think Eger's name now has pulling power all on its own, especially among younger cinephiles. I do think the date is a help, actually, because it's like, okay, away with all that, let's go and see something that's just terrifying. Yeah, I think it's absolutely the right time to have released it. I also think that it is one of the films that people think I need to see this projected because there's been so much talk about the way in which it's almost monochrome colour, the darkness of the dark scenes. In fact, in take two, we're going to be talking

about Sasevinan, which again was a film in which the whole thing about seeing it in the cinema, this is partly why the re-release is happening, was so important because the blacks are so black and the brightness is so encased in all of that. So I think partly it's because people are thinking, if I'm going to see this film, I need to see it in cinema. Partly it's because, I mean, Nosferatu does have name recognition. I'm not sure how big of a deal that is. I think it's because the reviews have been great and the word of mouth has been even better. I mean, I know so many people who've seen it and have literally told their friends, it's great, it's terrific, you need to go see it. And Lily Rosedep is brilliant.

An email from Bita in Germany and keeping our New Year greeting thing going. She says, Froher Neues Jahr, I am Bita, a long-term listener from Berlin. I recently found a copy of your book, The Movie Doctors, in a charity shop and bought it. I can't believe someone gave it away. I mean, that's rude. Anyway, I watch Nosferatu. I'm a great fan of the vampire and gothic genre and have seen the original 1922 version, but I did not like this version. I was not moved at all. I was bored. I wasn't scared. The acting was very theatrical, maybe intended. It didn't look like Germany, but then, I mean, I think that's probably fair. Then random people were addressed as hair and

frow and words like schnapps were used. I am German, so maybe this is very specific criticism. But my main criticism is I found the film to be a bit misogynist. For me, it felt like Eggers was trying to say, look, the female protagonist, she is strong and has the power. But Ellen was just this helpless, whiny little child as they frequently said., way too much gratuitous nudity. Why did the female leads

have to show their breasts unnecessarily? Then both Ellen and Anna, and then there is a spoiler, I didn't like the depiction of gypsies either, so in gypsies, in inverted commas. I personally didn't see the point in this remake at all, but thumbs up for the rats and the cat. Just while we're on the subject, Simon Kohlbrook and many, many others, with reference to Simon's doubt about traveling from Romania to Germany by boat. The Danube is navigable by riverboat from Germany to Romania and this has been the fastest way to travel in the early 19th century. Well, there you go. That, click that up. Except that, fine. Well, it doesn't, if you watch that, that's not a river.

That is a wide open roaring sea. So it may well be that that was a way to travel down a river, but that's not a river that we've got there, which is fine because in the story it works perfectly well and they wanted to make it look like the original. Yeah. Well, look, I the original. Anyway, very good. I loved it. Diversity of opinion is always a good thing and it's always great to hear from people who felt differently about a film.

I think it's one of the most exciting things, but I loved it and I'd happily watch it again. I imagine if you do live in Germany and in fact are German, that you'd be slightly different. You'd be slightly different, yeah. Like Germany at all. Correspondence at Kevin and Mayor dot com. Back in just a moment with Mark Watt. A review of a real pain and your special guests Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg. After this. What's up Mark? All's well. How about you? Well, I've been thinking about that cushion that we gave away at our live show. Yeah. That and the pencil case. Imagine if we had a load more that we needed to shift. Imagine the riches. Every

bottom or pencil case in the country would be graced in some way by our presence. Mason- Well, when you put it like that, we should have used Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionising millions of businesses worldwide from people selling compasses to comfy cushions. And it covers all your sales channels from a shop front ready POS system to its all-in-one e-commerce platform. It gets you selling across social media marketplaces. Oh, and it's full of the industry leading tools ready to ignite your growth. Shopify gives you complete control over your business and your brand without learning new skills in design or coding.

And thanks to award-winning help, Shopify is ready to support your success every step of the way. Sign up for a £1 per month trial period at Shopify.co.uk slash curmode. What's up, Mark? All's well. How about you? Well, I've been thinking about that cushion that we gave away at our live show. Yeah. That and the pencil case.

Imagine if we had a load more that we needed to shift. Imagine the riches. Every bottom or pencil case in the country would be graced in some way by our presence. Well, when you put it like that, we should have used Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide from people selling compasses to comfy cushions. And it covers all your sales channels from a shop front ready POS system to its all-in-one

e-commerce platform. It gets you selling across social media marketplaces. Oh, and it's full of the industry leading tools ready to ignite your growth. Shopify gives you complete control over your business and your brand without learning new skills in design or coding. And thanks to award-winning help, Shopify is ready to support your success every step of the way. Sign up for a £1 per month trial period at shopify.co.uk slash curmode. So you know that feeling where you've just left the cinema, you were excited to talk about the movie in the pub or on the car ride home or on the walk home? Well, that's our podcast. I'm Dave and this is my wife, Cathy. Hello. And our podcast is The Cinemile, where

we walk home from the movies. We are not film critics. We're just two movie nerds who've been doing this for the last eight years. I don't take our word for it. Here's some recent reviews on Apple podcast. A charming couple with bad movie taste. I mean, their taste in movies is putrid. Your taste in movies is putrid. But hey, if you like listening to that sort of thing. Right, okay, ignore that one. Another great one we recently got was,

I absolutely love this podcast. There's nothing like the raw feeling after watching a movie and Dave and Cathy perfectly capture that. Great reviews, great fun. And you just love listening to nice people chat about movies. Yes, I swear we are nice people. And if you don't believe them either, well, maybe you'll believe the Independent Podcast Awards

who named us the best film and TV podcast of 2024. So that's us. We are the Cinemile. You'll find us wherever there are podcasts. So now this week's guests are Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg. You'll know Kieran from his recent run as Roman Roy in the wildly popular Sex Session, although as you're about to find out, that was news to Jesse. And Jesse from Social Network, Justice League and The Squid and the Whale, depending on what you're into. I spoke with them about A Real Pain, written, directed and produced by Jesse. It's a film about two cousins' trip to Poland from America to connect with their Jewish

roots. You'll hear a clip from the film, then my chat with Kieran and Jesse after this. I guess everybody's waiting in front for us. Mm-hmm, maybe. Hey, Duder? Yeah? Yeah, we're not at the right station, dude Sorry what? Yeah

What the fuck is cross Nick yeah cross Nick we're supposed to get off at Lublin no, I know Yeah, you were out pretty cold dish. Sorry. You mean we passed Lublin already like a while ago, and you didn't wake me up Oh, you're having such a good nap. Jesus Didn't have the heart to wake you up. You have like the most sub-sensitive priorities. Do you know that? Do you know that? And that is a clip from A Real Pain. And I'm delighted to say that we've been joined by Jesse Eisenberg,

who also wrote and directed, and Kieran Culkin. Gentlemen, welcome. How are you? Great to see you. Thank you so much. Very nice to see you. So, Jesse, we should start with you. You wrote and directed this very personal film. Introduce us to your movie. Yeah. So the movie is about these two cousins whose grandmother just died. And so they used money that they left her to go on this heritage tour of Poland to see where she was from and to learn about her history. And the story really focuses on these two cousins and

the way their relationship has kind of devolved over the course of the last few years. They are born three weeks apart, grew up as, you know, Kieran says, joined at the hip. And then as their relationship has kind of started to, you know, flounder a bit, they're on this tour together, seeing some very dramatic history. So you're David, Kieran, you're Benji. What kind of a guy is Benji? I find cousins intriguing because it's a different relationship to brothers. You have more leeway and you have a very interesting relationship. What kind of guy is Benji? Cousins you don't really like need. That's true.

If it doesn't like you're... Yeah, yeah, because I feel like with a sibling there's always something that you're just sort of bound to each other, even if you do drift apart. But with cousins, yeah, you get to be like, I don't know, it's my cousin. Yeah. What was it when you read the script that made you think, yes, I can do this? So in that moment, no idea. And I didn't want to overanalyze it or think about it. The fact that I could connect to it right away and understand it.

I try to with some characters, I try to only know as much about the person as they know about themselves. And as much as he's very in touch with his feelings, I think he's also completely, I don't think he has a lot of self-awareness. Does that sound right? Like blind spot, definitely, yeah. Yeah, but he's really connected with himself and really interested in people

and can connect with them quickly, but he doesn't think before he speaks. He's very spontaneous. And when I feel like when I was reading the script, I know exactly who this guy is. And then he would surprise me by something he would do. And I was reading the script, I know exactly who this guy is. And then he would surprise me by something he would do. And I would go, great, I don't want to plan that. I want to see how that comes out.

I don't know. I think that was what was appealing was like, he was completely unpredictable and I didn't want to try to predict or plan it. I didn't want to say the words out loud until we were on set doing it. I think Benji is kind of using the excuse of like grandma dying to try to make a connection with you.

That trip can be anywhere. And so I think he really wants to make a connection with David, but the moment David starts making an effort to connect. He doesn't like, it's like he goes, you know what, we shouldn't be talking about this. I don't like you being in the driver's seat. Let's disconnect.

And just reverses in that moment. Which is very interesting, but how do you direct someone who has a spontaneous reaction and doesn't want to plan or rehearse? You panic and panic and panic until they do it and they're great. And then you say, let me stay away from this person. Because he was so great. He was so great.

I mean, there were a few times where I thought it could go a different way. And we tried that too. But I don't know what we ended up using in the movie even. He was so great. He was so great. I mean, there was like a few times where I thought it could go a different way and we tried that too, but I don't know what we ended up using in the movie even. Like he was so great. He, the character is so mercurial. Like I can't, it's hard to articulate even what the character is.

I wasn't even writing it from like, I wasn't thinking about a psychological profile as much as I was just hearing this guy in my head and putting it in, putting it down. So I can't even exactly articulate why he reacts from one moment to the next in a different way. He's just this kind of mysterious person. And that's, yeah, it's a kind of passive aggressive thing.

And yeah. And so like, so I, I knew the character would succeed without being overly analyzed. Like Kieran is so great because he kind of would react in the moment the way the character would. And that's exactly what it was. And you can't teach that. You can't even ask an actor,

hey, no, be completely unhinged here. Like, you can't really ask an actor to do that. You can ask an actor, hey, you can loosen up a little bit, but you can't ask an actor to do what Kieran did, which was find these unusual nuances in between contradictory emotions. So at what stage did Kieran enter your mind as the perfect person to play Benji?

Right after I wrote this scene that took place on the monument where his character calls up all these characters on the monument, I wrote it at the library and my sister was watching my kid that night. And so when I got home late, I showed my sister the scene that I had written that day. And she said, there's only one person in the world who could play this part and it's Kieran Culkin. So you cast him because your sister said so? Yeah, she's super smart.

She's super smart with this kind of stuff and she watches a lot. I don't watch anything. So a lot of times she's my, you know, link to the outside world. Presumably you'd seen Kieran in various shows. No. No. He's never seen me in anything. Didn't audition.

I would have auditioned too. I don't know why. Why? Because I like auditioning because then you at least got to see me do the part and then go, well, look, it's not going to be, oh my God. Well, if I show up on set and I'm doing something and you don't know why. Like why? Because I like auditioning because then you at least got to see me do the part and then go, well, look, it's not going to be. Oh my God. Well, if I show up on set and I'm doing something and you don't like it,

I'm like, well, you should audition me then. Like you, like if I audition and you cast me, then you know what you're getting. There's no actor in the world you'll find who will say something like this. Really? You must be aware that no actor wants to audition. Cyber actors say they don't want to audition.

I like auditioning. I think it's kind of fun. And at least if I get the part, then you know, I know why you hired me as opposed to like, somebody told you that you need to hire me. I feel as though we're in a continuation of the film. A little bit. Yeah.

And he thinks this is perfectly normal behavior. It's just not. Can you picture anybody else doing it? Like is the question. No, exactly. But how did you know if you haven't seen my work and we met like twice in passing. I just know who you are.

You're in the world. I know who you are. Yeah. But you nearly dropped out of the picture, Kieran. Yeah. Because? Oh, that was just because I had just come off a succession. And I remember during that season,

I had to be away from my family for eight days. And I was hard but manageable. And then later that season, I had to be away from them for 11. And I thought I was going to die in a hotel room. And I was like, OK, that's my rule. Eight days. And then because of season, I had to be away from them for 11. And I thought I was going to die in a hotel room. And I was like, OK, that's my rule. Eight days. And then because of scheduling, whatever, I saw that I was going to have to be away from them for 25 days, which is a huge leap.

And I had to wait, why am I doing this movie? Creatively, I want to. I love this movie. Why am I doing it if it's going to break me as a person, take me away from my family? So there was that. And then I went, well, I should probably stick to my rule. And I tried and thankfully failed.

And you were persuaded by Emma Stone? Yes. It was a phone call. She did a little reverse psychology thing on me. Yeah. And she completely understood. She was like, I get that. Family first.

I was like, you sure? She goes, yeah, it's completely fine. I said, but I said said, I had other ideas on who you could cast. I can make some calls and help you with that. And she goes, no, no, no, if you back out, the whole movie falls apart, but it's fine. And it was, she really was.

And I was like, is it really fine? She goes, yeah, you have to put family first, my love to the wife and kids and don't worry about it. The cleanup is my job, not yours. Yeah, it's like, I was like, okay. I got the phone, I was like, no. You didn't know it just. No, I didn't okay. I got the phone, I was like, no. You didn't know it, Jess. No, I didn't know.

He was in the dark about this entirely, yeah. Emma's a great producer, and that's the kind of thing that a great producer does. So in a way, the centerpiece of your movie is when you're filming in the concentration camp, the death camp, there is obviously a difference, but can you explain what the purpose of that was and how you got permission and are there rules

and regulations about what you can film and what you can't film? Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, it was an incredibly unusual experience. Basically what happened was, I'd written the scene for Majdanek, which is like one of the lesser known camps. People think of Auschwitz, of course, Dachau, et cetera.

And so after I finished the script, we sent it to Polish producers. The producers of our movie, Produce Zone of Interest and I, we sent it to Polish producers. The producers of our movie Produce Zone of Interest and Ida Coldwork, amazing Polish producers. And she told me, if you want to shoot that scene in the camp, it's going to cost a million dollars. I said, a million dollars for what?

She goes, well, we have to build it. You can't shoot in these camps. They don't allow movies in, otherwise they'd be overrun with Holocaust movies and they're sacred grounds. They're cemeteries, they're graves, you know? And so I said, oh, well, that's a third of our budget. We can't spend a million dollars on building a set that's in the movie for five minutes.

Of course not. And then we lost touch for a little bit because the movie got delayed. And I started writing like letters to emails to people who worked in Holocaust museums. Can you please connect me to the people at my Danek so I can explain to them what my goal is? Finally, when I got in touch with them, I expressed to them, my goal is the same as your goal. You want to show people what happened on these grounds, and I want to do that too. And mine is for a film-going audience and yours is for tourists, but we're trying to

do the same thing. I'm not trying to turn your camp into Auschwitz in 1942. I'm trying to show it for what it is now, and I'll be as respectful and simple as possible. My family lived five minutes from here. This is a personal movie. I'm not trying to exploit, you know, your camp for my melodrama. And so we talked about it,

and by the end of this relationship, it was like amazing. They were so thrilled that we were there. They gave me testimonials that they had personally translated from survivors. It just turned into this beautiful working relationship. And the scene where the touring party go through, Kieran, it feels as though no one is acting at this point, that we're actually going through this camp with you.

Yeah, that's how it was. And I remember taking it in in real time in character, but as myself, the way anyone would. You're not really, it's hard to say, you're not really like yourself when you're in there anyway. So it's not like I was Benji or I'm me. I wasn't anybody. I was just there.

Presumably most people's reaction is it's too much to take in. And then afterwards, I mean, afterwards Benji falls apart on the coach. A lot of people's reaction when they've been around a camp like that is the next day. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Or you go back home and you're having your coffee in your nice place that you live and suddenly this thing floods back of, oh my God, I'm so lucky. I am so lucky. I'm so lucky. Can you explain a bit, Jesse, about the other people that you cast around you, two guys, so you've got the two cousins going around,

then at the end of the movie you kind of peel off and you go to visit your grandmother's house. But you have an English tour guide, played by Will Sharp, but I was most intrigued by the Jewish Rwandan, who has a more recent experience of genocide. Can you just explain about who were the people that you wanted to put around Benji and David?

Right, so for the most part, what these tours are, are basically middle or upper middle class tours designed for middle or upper class suburban American Jews or English speaking Jews. So I do have the two retirees on the tour, but I was trying to fill it out with something a little more dynamic so that it wasn't just a kind of, as Kieran puts it, a geriatric tour.

And so about five years ago, I was at a wedding in Canada, and I met this man who survived the Rwandan genocide. He was my age. He moved to Canada, and he found that he could only be comfortable with Holocaust survivors. He met Holocaust survivors in Canada, and he converted to Judaism, and he became my most religious Jewish friend. So on Jewish holidays, the only emails I get

wishing me a happy holiday, whatever the holiday is, are from this man, Eloj. And so when I was writing this movie, I was trying to think of how to kind of like, how to broaden out what this movie is about. I didn't want it to just make it about the very specific experience my family had. I wanted to make it about pain in general, and pain in different forms. So I was trying to think of who I can put on this trip. The funny thing is the first thing when you

Google my friend Elloge, when you Google him, the first video that comes up is him talking about going to Auschwitz. So I thought this is not only a real- world person, but would add so much scope to this movie and allow me to tell a bigger story. And so I called Elloj and I said, I'm thinking of doing this. Would it be okay if I use your story? And he said, yes, of course, of course, of course. I've told my story many times. I would be honored. So he helped me cast it. He helped me with wardrobe. He helped me with dialogue changes that I wanted to make. And he spoke to Kurt Egiuon, the brilliant

British actor who plays him, about playing the role. Kurt got to know him, Elloj and his wife, and it was just an amazing addition to an otherwise Jewish story. And these are the people, Kiran, who Benji sort of bounces off and I don't think they've met someone like Benji before. I don't know, maybe, but maybe not. To me what it was was just like, Benji can't do small talk or just sort of be what one might call normal in a social situation.

He can't really do that. He needs to get right into who they are. And it manifests in different ways that I wasn't even really aware of sometimes until I'm watching it. Like with Marsha, it was to go right up to her and insult her. And you know, when I did that with Jennifer, like in character, she sort of punched my arm.

I went, okay, cool. But that was the way that it was sort of to needle her and be kind of mean, flirty, something. I don't know what it was. What it was with David for some reason was I was always putting you in headlocks or grabbing you or touching you in some way because it's like, I need you to be present, man.

And I need you to do that. I need you to get into who the person really is. And so, and also because we got there, I got there like the day before we started shooting, I'm getting to know these actors and these characters in real time. So I needed to do that fast because that's how Benji works. So are the other actors required to be spontaneous with you? Yeah. In character. Yeah. And you're directing this. Yeah. Was that fun or stressful? Yeah, it was great

fun. I mean, a lot of the group scenes are, you might not look, it might not look like this in the movie, but it just took longer to shoot these scenes. So we were doing a lot of them where we're just walking through streets. And so it was up to Will Sharpe, who played the tour guide, to kind of read a little bit about these streets so that when our characters ask him, you don't hear this stuff in the movie. It's the music over it or whatever. But we had to have a rapport that sometimes is not

in the movie. And it was just great fun to watch everybody settle into this thing. It was just great. Amazing actors. Everybody was overqualified for their roles. They wanted to be involved because they liked the project. No one was getting like, you know, paid lots of money or anything.

So it just was a group of people who really wanted to be there and who created a rapport that was just so thrilling for me. And did it make you want to, this is the second film you directed, did it make you want to do number three or get back to acting? Yeah, of course. I remember thinking like, this is so much better. I'm on their team. I'm like sweating in the locker room with the actors. That's what feels right. On my first movie, I would like, you know, come in later. They would be, you know, getting

their hair done at five in the morning and I would come in at six and I wouldn't see them until they showed up to the set. And I always felt like I was cheating a little bit. And on this, it felt like we're in the trenches together. And yeah, I'm directing it, but don't worry, we're all here together. And if you're nervous, well, listen, I'm nervous too, because I have a lot of lines in the scene and I'm struggling to remember them here. And it just felt like great.

It felt like I was in the trenches with them and I feel, on my next movie, I don't know if I'll play in it, but it's like- That's what I was going to ask you. Do you think, is there a part for you? Yeah, I kind of feel like I should, because it just feels so like cheating, like not being in with the team.

You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Can you imagine if just like one of you in the scenes were like just watching from behind the monitor? Yeah, that would be weird. Yeah. Put yourself in the next movie. Yeah. Okay. What's next for you, Kiran?

Is it Glengarry Glamouros? Yeah. That. On stage? Yeah, there's that, which I'm a little bit terrified of, but yeah. Well, it's been a pleasure to speak to you both gentlemen. Thank you very much. We show the best for a real pain.

It was one of those interviews that would have been fun to have done in another 20 minutes or so. When I arrived, Jesse was telling Kieran about a job opportunity that he had come across. I'd sat down and they were still talking after two minutes and I was just nervous that this was going to be part of my time allocation. So, but it wasn't, it was fine. They would, they just, oh, you're right. You're here. So let's, okay, let's start the next interview. But, um, I thought when I started watching the film, it was as though, I

thought, this is strange because the director has clearly said, who's Jesse Eisenberg has said, you know, that Roman Roy thing, do that, do that, but that's not, that's not the way it is as you, as you just heard as you just heard. That is the way Kieran Culkin is. It's the thing when he said he hasn't seen me in anything. Yes, and not even Succession. He hadn't watched Succession. He didn't know about Roman Roy but cast him because of his sister. Anyway, it's an astonishing story in the telling of how the film got made and it's an interesting

film. What did you make of A Real Pain? I'm not sure about the title, by the way, because it makes it sound like a rom-com. Oh, no, I think the title is interesting. I'll tell you why. Just a brief recap. Lowkey Family Drama was named one of the top 10 films of the year by the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review, written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, who won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance, co-starring Kieran Culkin, who just won supporting actor at the Globes. Two cousins, David and Benji, on a heritage tour of Poland, funded by the money they've inherited from their recently deceased grandmother who grew up here. David is uptight and organized. He's got a job, a family. He's fairly buttoned down. Benji

is much more of a kind of free spirit, connected, but not self-aware. When we first meet him at the airport, he's been there for hours because he says, oh, the airport's great. You meet all the best people here. When they meet the tour group, Kieran Culkin's character is like an agent of chaos at first. He says things that, you know, pull people. He doesn't do small talk. He hasn't got any internal filters, but gradually he seduces them. Everyone comes to love him and then they fall for him and then we discover that he has fallen himself in the past and is probably in danger of doing so in the future. The real pain thing is, he is a real pain, but he is also experiencing a real pain of loss or failure or trauma or whatever it is. I think the reason

the title works is because there is that dual meaning in it. Somebody is a real pain, but they are also experiencing real pain. Then when you consider that all of this plays out against the backdrop of the Holocaust and the history of which is everywhere on the tour. The question is, in a world with that kind of pain, how valid is any personal pain? Is this now just a generation that would be a crushing disappointment to their forebears who survived so much and worked so hard so that they can now be in this position of just navel gazing to some extent. And I think that's really interesting. I think that the reason the title works is because the title does that thing about it sounds flippant and off beat, but actually

it is about the heart of the thing, which is what is a real pain. And I mean, it was hilarious listening to that interview. Honestly, it did sound like an outtake scene in which they just happened to bump into a radio host and they talked to him for 20 minutes and then they carry on again. I think it says something that they were allowed the filming access that they got, because I think that does say something

about the seriousness of the project. I don't think it's exploitative. I don't think it's melodramatic. I think that scene in the camp works because it's so low key. It doesn't feel exploitative at all. It feels earned. It feels that what it's doing is exactly what Jesse Eisenberg said it was doing actually was telling that story. I also think that the addition of the story about the survivor of the London genocide, which he said he drew from reality, works really well. It actually is a very important part of the narrative and again comes back to the What is real pain? Lovely use of Chopin. I thought that, you know, it's obviously a correct choice because of Chopin's Polish virtuoso, but I thought that worked really well.

And I thought that all the way through it, it had that really smart thing of, it felt light. It felt like two characters walking down the street, talking to each other and other characters coming in. But what it did was it had a cumulative weight. That meant that at the end of it, you really felt that it had addressed some very profound issues, but done so in a way which was very entertaining and seemed,

whilst you were watching it, to be very casual, to be very natural, to be very, it didn't fit, it wore its heaviness lightly. And it did leave me thinking, you know, about what the nature of a real pain is. It's interesting that it's clearly a Jesse Eisenberg film by every single measure. Yes. Uh, written, produced, directed, starring, and yet it's a Kieran Kulkin film because for all the reasons that Jesse Eisenberg was saying, there is no one else who could have played that role like that, uh, and caused that kind of chaos.

I don't think there is anyway, there may well be, but you can see why Jesse Eisenberg's sister made an astute observation. She did. It's a very smart bit of casting. I don't know if I entirely believe that he's never seen me in anything, but if it is true, then it is a remarkable bit of casting. It also made me wonder at the end, so he's doing Glengarry Glenross on stage, how the Kieran Culkin that I met briefly for 20 minutes will fit into the discipline of a play that's

that intense. I imagine he will have to rehearse, for example, and he will have to learn the words before the actual shooting, that kind of thing. I had a conversation with Brian Cox not so long ago, and Brian Cox was just gearing up to do something, it was Long Day's Journey or something, anyway, something. I said, how is it? He said, it's a lot of words to learn. And I think, yeah, of course, every time you do a play, it's a lot of words to learn. And a great gift if you have like Kieran Culkin or photographic memory.

You look at the words go, fine, okay, let's do that. Okay, that's very good. A real pain correspondence at codomeo.com. It's the ads in a minute, Mark. But first with Gay Abandoned, let's step into our fantastic, slightly malfunctioning laughter lift. Here we go. Well, hey Mark, during the festive season with my children around me, I couldn't help thinking about their births. I remember the good lady ceramicist who was having a particularly

tricky time with one of them. I can't remember which. She cried out in pain. What's wrong? I helpfully asked. These contractions are killing me, she screamed. I'm so sorry, darling. I said, what is wrong? I didn't see that coming. No, me neither. Awful weather over the holidays, Mark, I'm sure you noticed.

The good lady ceramicist thinks it's weird that I stare hauntingly through windows during a heavy rainstorm. It would be a lot less weird if she'd simply just let me in. Okay, I've had two laughs. You're doing well. Let's see if I can make a hat trick. Okay. Finally, Mark, I took a little break from reading about politics over the break, but I hear that the Canadian Prime Minister has resigned. I'm not sure that it's true though. Hey, you didn't get a third laugh. But it's a humorous line, well delivered, but not worthy of a laugh.

Ripped from the pages of today's headlines. Exactly. Okay, very good. Correspondence at COVIDamate.com is where you send your stuff. What is coming up after our next invaluable ad break? A review of Baby Girl. Okay, obviously there won't be an ad break if you are a Vanguardista, in which case this would just waste a bit of time. But anyway, for everyone else, here we go.

See you on the other side. Say hello to Tim's Selects, Tim's everyday value menu. Enjoy the new spinach and feta savory egg pastry or our roasted red pepper and Swiss pinwheel starting at only $2.99 plus tax. Try one or try our full Tim's Selects lineup. Terms apply. Prices may vary at participating restaurants in Canada. Tex and Diane had it all. Until the night, neither of them wished to relive.

The night only one of them can. She said, Tex, what did you do? You shot me. Join us as we dive deep into a world of power, money, and greed, and one man's secret quest to grab the million dollar fortune of his deceased wife. So before we get to Baby Girl, which is the next review, an email from Rob in London, Dear Dolby 5.1 and Dolby 7.1, on the recent subject of cinema volume, I thought I should write in as both a cinema manager and the guy who deals with the tech on a weekly basis. I'm not sure what small crypt of the church basement I reside in though. We can very much control the volume

of each screening and any usher worth their salt should know this. Not how to change it themselves, but at least we can and they should inform a manager about salt should know this. Not how to change it themselves, but at least we can. And they should inform a manager about any issue like this to give yourselves and the rest of the church some context. We usually play the ads at one volume level, the trailers at a slightly higher level, and then the film at a slightly higher level above that. We keep this pretty standard across all films as we don't really have the time of all staffing to test each film,

trailer and ad each week to find the best volume for each one in each size of screen. 99% of the time this causes no issues. However, sometimes a studio will send a projectionist note along to say that a film should be played at a certain level. For example, our usual volume is 5.5 for a film, but Universal wanted Wicked played at 7.0 minimum. This was too loud for our site, so we went for 6.0. If some cinemas are just taking these requests at face value, this could cause some films to be too loud for the screen they're playing in. I assume most of these projectionist notes are aimed at multiplex sized cinemas and not

smaller independent ones where the speakers in a screen are nearer your head. On the opposite slightly more light hearted side of things, sometimes from our older patrons we get two people from the same screening asking us to both turn it down and turn it up. In these situations I wonder if it's maybe their own hearing tech causing the issue rather than ours. I would think that's exactly right. Love the show, Steve. Rob in London. Okay. So I don't know what 5.5 watt as opposed to 7.0 watt, but that's the measurement on the

volume control. And you can in general turn it down if you wish. You can. So as we said, thank you for that email confirming that. As we said before, of course cinemas have control of the volume. Yeah. Also interesting that some cinemas, if due care and attention is not paid, they may well be playing Wicked too loudly. Yes, but this started because somebody went and complained to the manager and the manager said, I can't do anything about it. We don't have control over the volume. To which the answer is,

yes, you do. Correspondence at coedemo.com. Thank you for that, Rob in London. So, Baby Girl is out this week. Okay. So, controversial erotic drama written and directed by Dutch actor turned filmmaker, Helena Rijn, who made that kind of very dyspeptic horror comedy, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, which was a film I really liked, although it was full of characters I absolutely hated, which is a very smart move. So Nicole Kidman, who in connection with this starred in Stanley Kubrick's erotic thriller, Eyes Wide Shut, is Romy. She's a CEO of a tech company and she's married to theater director Jacob, played by Antonio Banderas. In an early scene, we see them making love, apparently enthusiastically, but the minute it's over she

scurries off into a private room to watch porn on a laptop, which is something that she needs to complete this process. And there is a sense of desperation and shame in the scene. This is something that she craves, she's not getting from her husband, but that also mortifies her. Walking to work, she sees a young man played by Harris Dickinson who came on the show and is a brilliant actor calming a dog which is running loose in the street and is attacking people but he somehow calms the dog down and gets it back to its owner. Later that same young man Samuel turns up in her office as an intern, and there is something about him that gets under her skin.

Here's a clip. Why do you want one? No. You shouldn't drink coffee after lunch. How many did you drink today? None of your business. Seven. Yeah. So it's a very low-key scene, but there's a lot going on in it.

So firstly, he says he calmed the dog down because he had a cookie. And then he asks her if she wants one, which is a strange question. He then starts impertinently telling her about not having coffee after lunch. And he says, how many coffees you had? And she says, none of your business, seven. So she said, I'm not telling you. And then she immediately tells him. So what becomes apparent if it hadn't already, is that on some level, she wants to be dominated. And it also gradually becomes clear that he has got a knack for knowing what people want and becoming that thing.

And they then embark on a relationship which is built around her desire for subjugation and his ability perhaps to give her that thing that she want, that thing that sent her scurrying off to the pornography earlier on. Now, the director has credited Paul Verhoeven's basic instinct and Adrian Lyon's Indecent Proposal as influential, although I would say that Nine and a Half Weeks is the thing

that casts the longest shadow. I know that Nine and a Half Weeks is incredibly flawed. It was a big sensation in the cinemas, but it's not a great film at all. That film was a very watered down adaptation of a pseudonymously written memoir about a relationship between a gallery owner and a Wall Street financier. And in the book, it's an abusive S and M relationship

that basically causes the lead character to have a nervous breakdown and literally their life falls apart. And in the film adaptation, there was a scene in which the character played by Kim Basinger has become so subjugated to the character played by Mickey Rourke that she agrees to a suicide pact. She agrees to take pills that she thinks are going to kill them. And they aren't they just they're just nothing. And when they preview screened the film, they took that scene out because the audience reacted so badly to it.

They just thought, okay, we, you know, people aren't going to, they just can't do this. And of course that ripped whatever heart that film may have had. But there's a key line in nine and a half weeks when Basen's character says to Mickey Rourke, how did you know I'd respond to you the way I did? And he says, because when I looked at you, I saw myself. Now, this is a very, very different scenario because it's Kidman's character who has the power. Samuel isn't seeing himself in her. He appears to be seeing her because with everyone that he meets, he sort of seems to see what it is that they need or see

what it is that they want and then somehow make himself into the person that delivers that. Now it is very important to remember firstly, in any S&M relationship, the power dynamic is not what might appear from the outside. The submissive partner is generally the author of the scene. So power structures within S&M and I know that here in Britain, we just smirk about all this kind of stuff. But one has to understand that that is, it is hardwired into S&M. And this addresses that directly because Samuel,

the character played by Harris Dickinson, literally says to her, look, you have to say it. You have to say that you want this before I can do it, before it's okay. Now, that isn't to say that the issue isn't fraught. And I know a couple of people who have been outraged by the idea that this is a film in which a successful woman wants to be humiliated by this sort of, you know,

upstart intern. I also know people who think the film is just silly, which honestly is a kind of standard response to any film dealing with sex and desire is just to go, you know, because that is what we tend to do. The truth is, I think that whether you think it works or not, I think it is a seriously intentioned drama with a kind of, you know, a satirical edge to it about hidden desires and about the destructive power that they can hold, but also about the reality of them.

It is also, it's a female sexual quest narrative and it's worth noting that next week we have a new version of Immanuel starring Naomi Melon and directed by Olle Devane. I mean that is meant to be a feminist reworking of Immanuel which of course it was originally based on a pseudonymously written novel and was then you know turned into a famous softcore 70s porn film, what's a 70s softcore film by Just Shacken. There's a great score by Cristobal Tapia de Villa of whom I've long been a fan for Baby Girl. Kidman's performance I think is brave. I mean, it's brave in a number of ways, not least because it's the way in which she's marked by her family for the way she looks is, you know, is kind of weirdly

self referential. Harris Dickinson is just terrific. I mean, he's terrific in everything. I've never seen him put a foot wrong. It was interesting when he came onto the show, he talked about how meticulous he is about detail and how the way in which the nuances of performance are really something that he studies really thoroughly. So look, it's not perfect, and it's certainly not for everyone. And I know people who have really disliked Baby Girl, but I think we have a habit of just dismissively smirking at any film that's trying to take

this kind of thing seriously. And I thought it, although in the end, it didn't fully work for me. I mean, one of the other things, if people say, well, it's not sexy, it's not meant to be sexy. It's meant to be a psychological drama that is about sex as opposed to a sexy film.

So I thought it was a bold statement. I think from Nicole Kidman's point of view, it's a fairly brave role to have taken on. And she is of course the very best thing about Eyes Wide Shut, which is Stanley Kubrick's worst movie. I thought your use of the phrase early on in that review, your use of the phrase to finish the process was nuanced and inspiring. Thank you, Simon.

Before we finish, Catriona says, whilst reading one of this year's Christmas presents, Michael Palin's Diaries, volume four, I was pleased to find that Mark himself gets a mention on Sunday, October the 8th, 2006. Okay. Thought I'd let you know in case you weren't aware, see attached photo. Keep up the good work. I finally joined the Vanguard over the Christmas holidays I've been meaning to for ages and feel ashamed it's taken me this long. Here is the clip. From Sunday, October the 8th, in the evening, watch the culture show special on me. Pretty

excruciating. Especially the praise. Mark Kermode, a very bright man, calling me one of the most underrated film actors all based on my purse in brazil as far as i can see the reves talking about how we enjoyed just watching my face i just want to kiss it sometimes. It's the court anyway we've just been listening to mark a very bright man and i'm going to take one is bit of sony music a Sony Music Entertainment production. This week's team, Jen, Eric, Josh, Vicki, Zachy, Heather. Producer is Jem. The redactor is Simon Poole, who is wearing a splendid jumper, which makes him look like the U-boat captain from Dance Army. And if you're not following the pod already, what on earth has been wrong with you? Please do so wherever you get your podcast. Mark, what is your film of the week? My film of the week is a real pain. Back next week with a complete unknown. A complete unknown! Complete unknown!

Home! Hey Simon! Rome! What does Bob Dylan's phone sound like on Silent Vibrate? Mmmmm. Mmmmm.