LOS ANGELES, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Jesse Eisenberg created

the film "A Real Pain" to depict the emotional distress between

two Jewish American cousins touring modern-day Poland as they

learn more about the trauma of the Holocaust.

"I wanted to talk about that pain (between cousins) but set

against the backdrop of something so much more objectively

worse, like World War Two trauma," Eisenberg said.

He wanted to pose an important question to both the audience

and to himself.

"What pain is valid? Are we supposed to take these two young

men seriously, even though their pain could not compare to

massive, mass scale terror, or are we supposed to dismiss them

because their lives are irrelevant against the backdrop?" he

added.

"A Real Pain" is distributed by Searchlight Pictures, a unit

of Walt Disney ( DIS ), and arrives in theaters on Friday. The

film follows different-tempered cousins David, played by

Eisenberg, and Benji, played by Kieran Culkin, as they reunite

for a group tour of Poland to learn more about their grandmother

and Jewish history.

The movie also stars Will Sharpe as James, the group tour

guide, along with Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy and

Daniel Oreskes, who play members of the tour group.

Things take a turn when the emotional tension between the

cousins rises, and they work to process their complex feelings

about their family.

It wasn't until watching himself play Benji on-screen that

Culkin truly analyzed his character.

"Knowing somebody in my life that's pretty similar to him

(Benji)" helped Culkin understand the character in a deeper way.

For Sharpe, Benji serves as a big influence on the rest of

the characters as they go through the historic tour.

"I think Benji, Kieran's character, impacts each of our

characters sort of along the film's journey, and often he sort

of does it in almost quite a competitive way," said Sharpe, who

has also appeared in the TV series "The White Lotus".

Benji challenges the way James conducts the tour, which

makes him think about his job in a different way, Sharpe added.

By contrast, Sharpe sees David, Eisenberg's character, both

"fascinated and frustrated" by his cousin's constant

transparency and outspokenness.

For Grey, the film comes down to a story of people who are

healing.

"The cure for pain is healing, and it doesn't mean it goes

away. It just means there's perhaps some mitigating of the pain,

some shift in perspective," she said.

For her, from the horror of the Holocaust to the struggles

that the cousins face in modern day, the movie is about the

overall pains of life.