The King of Staten Island is everything you want it to be. Striking a balance of sharp wit, tension, and surprising poignancy, Judd Apatow’s most recent directorial credit delivers a remarkably resonant narrative about the unremarkable.
Co-written by Apatow, Dave Sirus, and Pete Davidson – who also plays the titular role of Scott Carlin – The King of Staten Island is a semi-biographical narrative based on Davidson’s own life. Both Davidson and the character Scott, having lost their firefighter fathers to tragic accidents on the job, grapple with depression and manic episodes, and use their vices to self-medicate.
At 24, Scott hasn’t achieved much of anything and spends his days high to avoid feeling – be it for his childhood friend Kelsey (Bel Powley), his ambitions of becoming a tattoo artist, or the neurosis of his own mind. However, as Scott watches his mother Margie (Marisa Tomei) find love again in Ray Bishop (Bill Burr), who also happens to be a firefighter, it sets off a series of events that force him to meaningfully reckon with his grief for the first time.
What makes The King of Staten Island so compelling is not a celebration of heroic fathers and overcoming adversity. Rather, it’s an honest look at the universal nature of life’s shitty moments, and the not-so-shitty moments that come too.
Scott is an effective character because he is so very ordinary – what happened to him could happen, and does happen, to everyone. The loss of a family member, the fallout from divorce, the feeling that you have reached a crossroads in your life but haven’t the slightest clue where to go next, all are portrayed with a stark honesty that underscores every punchline or emotional exchange.
And it’s not just Scott. There is a delightful complexity to every character. Ray is often sharp and hot-tempered, and Margie too has her moments of ill-humour, but it’s those complexities that make the film.
While the characters are all well developed, The King of Staten Island does take a bit to find its footing in a concrete storyline. The beginning of the film lacks a sense of direction, and it’s initially unclear where things are headed. Perhaps this was intentional, to reflect Scott’s own lack of direction in life, but a considerable amount of time had passed before I felt invested in the story.
However, that emotional investment did come eventually. Davidson, known for his crass, bitingly funny lines, fills his movie with a surprising amount of melancholy too. There are a series of sweet moments that touch you just a bit more deeply than you were expecting, as Davidson manages to latch on to some inarticulable universality about life.
And it is, undoubtedly, Davidson’s movie through and through. Anyone who saw his comedy special, Alive From New York, which debuted on Netflix earlier this year, will recognize Davidson’s fingerprint in every joke cracked. However, they’ll also recognize the stories that Davidson recounted of his own father and his upbringing. As Scott struggles to humanize his father’s legacy, it appears Davidson too poured many of his own heartaches into the film.
But not to worry – no sensitive moment is left to linger too long. After a particularly poignant exchange between Ray and another firefighter about Scott’s father, the camera cuts away to Scott attempting to fit a hose nozzle, stream of water and all, into his gaping mouth. The King of Staten Island recognizes the poignancy of its narrative, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously along the way. It’s a potent mix of punchlines and heartfelt conversations that coalesces into a truly exceptional final product.
The King of Staten Island is available “on-demand everywhere now.”