The King of Staten Island

The King of Staten Island (2020)

By Emily Hubbard

Pete Davidson surprises in a gut-punching, funny ode to grief

• 4/5 Cameras 🎥🎥🎥🎥
• Directed by: Judd Apatow 
• Starring: Pete Davidson, Marisa Tomei, and Bill Burr 
• Where to find it: Sky Cinema/Now TV 

No Copyright Infringement Intended 

Pete Davidson is known to many as Saturday Night Live’s resident stoner, and probably known by equally as many as a certain ponytailed popstar’s ex-fiancé, but what many people, myself included, have glossed over, is the amount of talent this 27-year-old man has, and the amount of trauma he’s been through.

Directed by Judd Apatow, the man behind modern comedy classics such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, The King of Staten Island is a semi-biographical take on Pete Davidsons’s life. The film follows Scott Carlin (Pete Davidson), a weed-smoking aspiring tattoo artist who’s forced to get his life together after his mother Margie (Marisa Tomei) begins dating a man, Ray (Bill Burr), who, like his deceased father, is a New York firefighter.

For those of you who are unaware of Pete Davidson’s childhood, his father was a firefighter who sadly lost his life in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001, when Davidson was 7. This loss is shared with Davidson’s character Scott, whose father died when a roof collapsed mid-fire. This film serves as a tribute to Davidson’s father, and New York firefighters in many touching ways. If you’ve seen Pete Davidson’s stand-up routines, however, you’ll be aware of the jokes he regularly makes about his father and his grief, usually for the shock factor that they attract, and you’d be forgiven for assuming that The King of Staten Island would have a similar tone. Surprisingly, however, this film has an unexpected, yet welcome, emotional weight to it, making it stand out from other films in Judd Apatow’s back catalogue. Don’t get me wrong, The King of Staten Island is full of crude jokes and innuendos, but instead of these jokes being played purely for laughs, here many of them are used to show how people can use humour to deflect from their grief.

Davidson’s performance is a large factor in why The King of Staten Island is so compelling. Not only is he a surprisingly good dramatic actor, but the emotional undertones of many of his scenes as Scott leaves the audience feeling like they’ve delved into Davidson’s psyche in ways only those closest to him would. Aside from Davidson’s performance, Marisa Tomei (Margie) and Bill Burr (Ray) add a great amount of depth to the film. Margie (Marisa Tomei) is an exhausted nurse at the end of her tether with Scott’s (Pete Davidson) case of arrested development, with her growing sense of exasperation throughout the film leading to a touching scene between her and her son, where he finally admits that he still misses his father, in one of the many scenes that not only pull at the heartstrings but also make you feel like you’re sat in a therapy session with Pete Davidson. Bill Burr (Ray) also shines, as The King of Staten Island not only shows the growth of Scott (Pete Davidson) but also of his mother’s boyfriend, going from someone who believes our protagonist has no hope of succeeding in life, to someone who actively lets him practice his tattooing on his back.

Another notable appearance in The King of Staten Island is Steve Buscemi (Papa) as a firefighter who worked alongside Scott’s (Pete Davidson) father. Buscemi’s role in this film is particularly poignant as he used to be a firefighter himself and was one of the masses of volunteers who helped with the clean-up after the 9/11 attacks. This film isn’t perfect, not all of the jokes hit, but despite originally thinking that the 2 hour 16-minute runtime would be too long, I was relieved to find that it was actually the perfect length.

Going into this film, I expected a standard comedy that would provide a few good laughs. What I wasn’t expecting was an emotional, gut-punching, and hilarious coming-of-age story. Perhaps most unexpected, however, was the amount of time’s this film made me cry. The King of Staten Island truly is a joy to watch.