Scott has been a case of arrested development since his firefighter dad died. He spends his days smoking weed and dreaming of being a tattoo artist until events force him to grapple with his grief and take his first steps forward in life.
Pete Davidson on “Saturday Night Live” never did anything for me. Granted, I never got into the show either but his comic timing always seemed to be off in the few sketches I saw him in so when the trailer dropped for “The King of Staten Island,” I had absolutely no desire to see the film. But, part of the job of being a film critic means sometimes viewing movies that I normally wouldn’t watch and in this instance, I am so glad I did because “The King of Staten Island” is one of the best films of 2020 so far. Pete Davidson turns in a nuanced, career-defining performance that should catapult him out of the childish sketches of SNL and into the elite sphere of notable comedians-turned-serious-actors, following in the footsteps of Robin Williams, Steve Carell, Adam Sandler, and Bill Murray, to name but a few.
Director Judd Apatow presents his best film to date and combines moments of levity and dramatic turmoil to give us a story that always feels authentic and never once feels Hollywoodized. The entire cast is top-notch and all deliver impeccable performances throughout and the fact that Mr. Apatow uses mostly unknown actors, adds a more realistic element to the movie instead of relying on Hollywood A-listers and the clout that accompanies them, sometimes hindering a film’s believability factor.
“The King of Staten Island” doesn’t follow the typical feature film format, the three-act structure of a beginning, a middle, and an end, instead, Mr. Apatow randomly picks Scott Carlin (Pete Davidson), an unemployed loser who lives in Staten Island and drops us into his life where we stay with him for two hours and sixteen minutes. We learn about his past, his present and what is expected to come but not necessarily via Scott, those facets are revealed through those who surround him, his mother Margie (Marisa Tomei), his sister Claire (Maude Apatow), his three best friends Oscar (Ricky Velez), Richie (Lou Wilson), and Igor (Moises Arias), as well as his on-again, off-again girlfriend Kelsey (Bel Powley).
Scott lives with his mother Margie and his sister Claire but Claire has been accepted into college and takes off shortly after the story begins, leaving Scott and Margie alone. Scott has a dream of opening a tattoo restaurant, where you can order food and watch people being tattooed while you consume your meal but he never does anything to realize that dream, it just sits in the back of his head, comparable to his everyday existence spent in his mother’s basement with his friends and girlfriend, getting high and having sex. Scott seems content doing nothing with his life and likes things exactly the way they are. We learn that his father was a firefighter who died a hero seventeen years ago when Scott was only eight and since then, he has been stuck in limbo, knowing his father will never come home but naively believing that his life will stay the way it is forever. When Claire leaves, it disrupts his way of life but he tries to move past it, that is, of course, until his mother meets Ray (Bill Burr), another firefighter and the first man she has been with since her husband’s death.
Ray tries to reach out to Scott and takes him to a baseball game but Scott is determined to dislike him, especially since he feels that he is taking his mother away from him. After befriending Ray’s ex, Gina (Pamela Adlon), she gives up personal details about him and he uses it against Ray. The two men have a scuffle in Scott’s back yard and Margie tells them both to leave and kicks Scott out of the house, telling him she’s had enough of his laziness and constant excuses for not wanting to do anything with his life at 24 years old. He hooks up with Kelsey and after having sex with her, asks if he can stay with her. Upset that he only used her for a place to stay, she kicks him out too. When his best friends Oscar, Richie, and Igor decide to rob a local pharmacy and ask Scott to be the lookout, he does so begrudgingly but things quickly go south after all three are arrested with Scott managing to escape. Despondent and with no one to turn to and nowhere to stay, he finally hits rock bottom and makes his way to the fire station where Ray works and asks if he can stay there. Initially, Ray wants nothing to do with him after the upset he caused between him and Margie but he allows him to stay for a few days.
Those few days turn into weeks and as Scott joins Ray and his crew on some of their calls to observe them working, watching them put their lives on the line to save complete and total strangers, he slowly begins to understand the comradery the men share and they tell him stories about his father and that he was no stranger to causing trouble himself, much to Scott’s delight. Scott’s total lack of consideration for everyone around him slowly begins to change and as the guys at the fire station take him under their wing, his relationship with his mother, Ray, Claire, and Kelsey all become stronger as a result. By the end of the film, Scott accompanies Kelsey into New York City as she prepares to take a test that should she pass, will get her a job working for the city. There is no happily ever after, nothing is tied up neatly with a bow, instead, Scott decides to wait for Kelsey outside while she takes her test and stares off into the void, while a smile makes its way across his face.
Apatow makes you feel like a fly on the wall as these people’s lives unravel right in front of you. Davidson is a revelation, plain and simple. He goes from tranquil to agitated to delusional to emotionally unstable and back to tranquil again, sometimes all within the same scene. My admiration for him has skyrocketed and I eagerly await his next dramatic role. I highly recommend “The King of Staten Island” and think you will be pleasantly surprised by Mr. Davidson’s performance. I know I was.
Available on VOD Friday, June 12th
