Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The King of Staten Island’ On HBO, Pete Davidson’s Semi-Autobiographical Comedy By Way Of Judd Apatow

The King of Staten Island is yet another theatrical release that was shuttled to VOD in the wake of the pandemic. That it didn’t see the big screen is kind of a big deal — it’s Judd Apatow’s first major movie since 2015’s Trainwreck, and comedian Pete Davidson’s biggest leap outside his main SNL gig. It’s not Davidson’s first shot at anchoring a film; he played a pot-smoking go-nowhere in Big Time Adolescence, which debuted on Hulu in March 2020 and feels like an appetizer for King, in which he plays, well, a pot-smoking go-nowhere. Except this time, it’s based on his own life growing up on Staten Island, and he has Apatow’s muscle behind him.

THE KING OF STATEN ISLAND: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: One moment, Scott is dangerously squeezing his eyes shut while driving on the expressway, nearly causing a terrible accident. The next, he’s hanging in a dim basement watching The Purge with his fellow layabout pals, medicating himself with omnipresent weed and pills, which get dealt out the basement window for a few bucks a pop. He’s a 24-year-old jobless high-school dropout who lives at home with his mom, Margie (Marisa Tomei), who still tells him to go to his room. He watches his significantly less aimless sister, Claire (Maude Apatow), leave for college. He half-nurtures a half-assed dream of opening Ruby Tattuesday’s, a tattoo shop that’s also a restaurant; perhaps it’s worth mentioning that he’s a lousy tattoo artist. Kelsey (Bel Powley) is his oldest friend, and they do all the things BFs and GFs do — hang out a lot, have sex, talk about their feelings — and he probably loves her, but his self-esteem is carving a deep trench in the earth, so he keeps her at arm’s length.

Officially, Scott has ADHD and Crohn’s disease. Unofficially, he. Is. Depressed. He was seven when his firefighter dad died trying to save someone from a blaze, and now, his mother wants him to wear one of his old man’s old suits to Claire’s going-away party. “Your dark sense of humor doesn’t work for me,” his uncle says of Scott’s attempts to snark cynically through life. Fate intervenes, though. Lazing on a dingy beach with his thoroughly Apatowian collection of blockhead pottymouthed dude-buddies, a random kid wanders by and says he wants a tattoo. Scott inks one line on the boy’s bicep before he bolts. The kid’s dad ain’t happy — that would be Ray (Bill Burr), a man whose handlebar mustache precedes the rest of him by several inches. Ray knocks on the door to give Margie a piece of his mind. Later, he knocks again, and soon enough, Ray’s giving Margie a piece of his something else, which really busts Scott’s bong.

Complicating the already knotty psychological endeavor, Ray is a firefighter who knows of Scott’s dad, because the guy was enshrined as a selfless hero. Margie pushes them together, since they’re the men in her life; Ray pushes Scott to walk his adorable kids to school; Kelsey pushes him to commit to her. Everyone pushes him to do something, anything, because he needs a push maybe, but also needs to learn to push himself. Anything is better than the nothing he’s been doing. So he waits tables at an Italian restaurant, befriends Ray’s kids and ex-wife (Pamela Adlon), and tries not to let his friends get him in trouble. But it doesn’t seem like enough. Will this man-child ever leave the child behind and become a man?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Three words: Judd Apatow’s Backdraft.

Performance Worth Watching: Facts: Davidson still lives with his mom on Staten Island, he has Crohn’s, his firefighter father (whose name was Scott, not coincidentally) died on 9/11 and he’s been open and transparent about his struggles with mental health. How much is he playing himself, and how hard is it to play yourself? (Probably harder than we think?) We’re in Scott’s corner because Davidson is good at interweaving slacker-weed jokes into his character’s DNA, and is more than just the goof with a heart of mush. Davidson also holds his own with Burr’s combustible presence, as well as first-rate character actors Tomei, Adlon and Steve Buscemi (as Ray’s fire chief).

Memorable Dialogue: Scott and Ray argue vehemently:

Scott: “You bet on the Jets. Who bets on the Jets?!?”

Ray: “THE JETS ARE GONNA COME BACK!”

Sex and Skin: We don’t see much, but Scott and Kelsey groan and moan and say funny things while they integrate their nether-regions.

Our Take: Another man-child comedy? At least Apatow’s man-child comedies are sensitive man-child comedies in which the men-children have legit reasons for being men-children, and are more than just conduits for man-child jokes. The King of Staten Island, I believe, stumps heavily for destigmatizing the types of mental-illness issues Davidson’s character battles. Scott needs a win, but his deep-seated depression thwarts his every attempt to feel good about himself. Motivation is nil, weed is a crutch, and we’ve all been in similar vicious cycles, but for some, the cycle is more vicious.

Scott’s catalyst for change is the probable-stepdad weirdness occurring between Scott and Ray, and their relationship eventually almost gives the film some narrative focus, a few big laughs and a bittersweet, chewy center. Tangential meandering is dyed into Apatow’s wool by now; his films are like a beloved friend who’s funny and observant but stays an hour too long. Scott goes to college parties with his sister, tries to get a tattoo apprenticeship (from an artist played by Machine Gun Kelly), dons foam Hulk hands after work to fight for the tip jar, gets involved with a pharmacy heist, etc., etc. The third act is a mess, but the film warms us enough that I’m tempted to be an apologist — resolutions to problems like Scott’s are never thematically clean or crisply edited. We’d be less apt to tolerate such shenanigans if the film wasn’t equally light and heavy of heart as it courts our empathy for Scott. It essentially positions us as another character in his life, asking us to understand and forgive him, which we do.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The King of Staten Island is absorbing and spiked with a few big laughs, and only the hardest of hearts won’t feel Davidson’s joy and pain. But it’s ultimately going to go down as Lesser Apatow.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Where to watch The King Of Staten Island