Most of us millennials have seen enough Judd Apatow movies to understand its basic formula. They are comedies that are light and fun and rarely dive deep beneath the surface to really explore a character. If you are looking for Knocked Up or Forty Year Old Virgin, don’t look here. Apatow re-wrote the formula in The King of Staten Island, which is essentially a character feature focusing on the life of Scott Carlin (Pete Davidson), a 24-year old man-child who refuses to grow up. Similar to Apatow’s Trainwreck, with Amy Schumer, the movie's primary focus is on the inherent struggles and values of the main character, while the plot is a secondary piece. The heart of the movie is obviously Davidson, whose character’s struggles are largely assumed to be autobiographical.
It’s no secret that Davidson has struggled with his celebrity status in the past few years in the spotlight after making his break on SNL. Davidson uses The King of Staten Island to reflect upon his younger years growing up on the Island and references key parts of his life in the film. Similar to Davidson, the character of Scott loses his dad, a New York Fire Fighter, as a young child and has never fully recovered from the trauma, using it as a shield to refuse to grow up. While still living in his childhood home’s basement, he watches sister (Maude Apatow) move away for college and his mother (Marisa Tomei) begin to date another fire-fighter who used to work with his dad – as he watches the people in his life start moving on without him, he spirals deeper into depression and substance abuse.
"If You Have Money, Why Would You Live On Staten Island?"
The movie is long, with a run time of 2HRS 17MINS and it probably doesn’t have to be. The bulk of the movie doesn’t come until about an hour and fifteen minutes in, when Scott begins to explore the issues that have held him back for so long. He begins to ask questions about this father’s death, confront the anger that he had associated with his father as well and face his substance abuse issues head on. Scott seeks a new home within the Fire Department and finds a new family within the same Unit that worked with his Dad, seventeen years ago. This is where the film starts to take shape. You could probably take away the miscellaneous scenes at the beginning of the film where he smokes weed with his friends in the basement or set ups a portable tattoo shop in the park and offers to give people (including children) free tattoos to practice his craft. We could have skipped those parts and maybe we should have, those that are entering to watch this movie are most likely already aware that Scott is kind of a fuck up, and there are more than enough scenes to prove this, we are more interested in seeing his redemption and that’s what we get.
One of the film's most powerful scenes is the opening of the movie. As the film opens, we see Scott driving his car down the highway with his music blasting. As he drives down the stretch, he shuts his eyes for almost ten seconds and when he opens them he has to swerve around an accident in front of the car. As he re-gains control the of the car, he drives away as we see the car wreck in the background and he whispers to himself "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Any story that is semi-autobiographical about an actor, grabs attention and headlines. While Pete Davidson has mostly remained quiet the past few years, only really reaching the spotlight with his famous and short flings with celebrities, he gets to have his voice heard in The King of Staten Island. And it’s worth listening to.
And that’s the sitch.
6.5/10
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