The King of Staten Island: Judd Apatow and Pete Davidson squeeze tenderhearted comedy out of dark reality
By Karen Gordon
Rating: B
Producer/director Judd Apatow has carved an interesting niche in the comedy firmament, with slightly offside stories that often hinge on something deeper or more serious. His latest, the tenderhearted, slightly uneven The King of Staten Island might be the most dramatic of his comedies to date.
That’s partly because the film has its roots in a real life tragedy. It’s based on the life of Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson, who co-wrote the script with Apatow and SNL writing alumnus Dave Sirus.
When Davidson was a young boy, his firefighter father died on 9-11, and he’s talked about the impact that has had on his life. Davidson, also famously shares a house in Staten Island with his mom, and also has a sister.
Scott (Pete Davidson) tries to sort out his feelings for his mom’s new boyfriend, a firefighter (Bill Burr).
This proves to be the template of The King of Staten Island. Davidson plays Scott, a stunted mid-twenties stoner millennial living at home with his doting mother, Margie (Marisa Tomei), and his focused, ambitious sister Claire (Maude Apatow), who is preparing to leave for college. The family patriarch was a firefighter who died rescuing people in a hotel fire when Scott was 7. Scott idolized and now idealizes his late father.
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly Scott has a girlfriend of sorts, (he thinks of what’s going on as a “regular hook up”) named Kelsey (Bel Powley), who, much like his mother and sister, is energetic, loving and forward focused.
Scott is the dark anchor in all of this. He says he wants to be a tattoo artist, something we can see that he has no talent for (even though some of his closest male friends let him practice on them). And when even mildly asked about his future plans, he slams the emotional throttle into reverse, listing all of his medical ailments, mental and physical (he has Crohn’s, ADD, and worries that he’s not mentally stable) as a way of justifying his condition of stasis, and to keep the world, at large, at bay.
Into that mix, toss in his mom’s new boyfriend Ray (Bill Burr).
When Scott finds that Ray is a firefighter, he freaks out, and goes into full sabotage mode.
The King of Staten Island is Davidson’s film. But it’s also Apatow’s. And it has all of the things we’e come to expect from his movies: There’s a lead character who is sweet, but also a bit of a wrecking ball living through a dilemma created by their tendencies to retreat from their big issues and repeat mistakes. Apatow places them in a close knit world of friends and coworkers all of whom at close range are slightly eccentric.
As well, The King of Staten Island is ambitious. There are a lot of themes running at the same time. It’s about finding yourself, fathers and sons, sons and mothers, family ties of all kinds. But what sets this apart is that it’s also about the road through grief.
The film does a pretty good job of walking the tightrope between comedy and pathos.
To that end, Apatow has pulled together a wonderful cast. I can’t say enough about Marisa Tomei as Scott’s mother. She’s perfect as this wonderful gentle loving force of nature who can smack down when necessary. Just watching her run through a range of emotions as she tells Scott about her new boyfriend is a teeny master class in acting.
Also wonderful is Bel Powley as Scott’s long time not-quite-girlfriend Kelsey . And Maude Apatow may be able to thank her father for her career, but she has proven that can stand on her own as an actor and brings a ray of sunshine to the family dynamic.
The male characters almost inhabit their own story line, and are also beautifully cast. Bill Burr is terrific as the straight shooting fireman Ray. But the soul of the film comes in one of its smallest roles. Steve Buscemi plays Papa, the veteran fireman at Ray’s station. Without breaking a sweat, (metaphorically speaking of course) Buscemi grounds the film with such heart that I found myself thinking about his character long after the movie ended.
Of course the film rides on Pete Davidson, in his first major starring role, playing a version of his own story. He’s an odd presence, tall, lanky, with dark circles around his eyes (at one point Kelsey describes him as looking like an anorexic panda) covered in tattoos and doing his best to avoid real life and real connection.
He’s stunted and disinterested in anything other than his own interests, or so it seems. Depending on your point of view, the character himself may be tough to warm up to. Davidson, to his credit, dives in and doesn’t go for any cute tricks or other things to make us like him.
The movie gets all of this in, and yet doesn’t feel emotionally heavy. The deep dive is there if you want to look, but if you don’t want to go there, the doesn’t insist you look.
There are minuses. At about two and a quarter hours, it’s also long, arguably too long, with scenes that add to the length, and not really much else. And that makes it flag at times. The length takes away from some of the emotional impact.
On the other hand, Apatow makes movies of incredible sweetness, and in that regard, The King of Staten Island is no exception.
The King of Staten Island. Directed by Judd Apatow. Co-written by Judd Apatow and Pete Davidson. Starring Pete Davidson, Marisa Tomei and Bel Powley. Released on demand on major platforms on Friday, June 12.