Some might say that, at this point in his career, Pete Davidson is known more for his public persona than anything he has done on Saturday Night Live. If his new Judd Apatow directed film The King of Staten Island does anything, it shows that he is fully aware of it. Serving as less of a true comedy and more of a character study that attempts to demystify the man behind the public relationships and nervous breakdowns, the film gives you an insight into what makes him tick in a semi-biographical tale of his life, warts and all. It’s a brave pursuit and it’s clear that Davidson has put his heart and soul into writing the film and playing himself, showing just how devastating an effect the death of his father has had on his psyche. It does, however, suffer in the joke department – with only a handful of scenes offering more than a weak chuckle. The film feels like something of a hoodwink, luring you in with the prospect of an exciting young comedic talent and then failing to deliver. If you go in knowing that this is a deep dive into Davidson’s life then you are likely to get more out of it but at this point so long after his popularity has peaked it is hard to believe that the audience is really starving for this introspective look.
Davidson plays Scott, a 20-something stoner who lives at home and spends his days hanging around his friends’ shady basements and local Staten Island parks contemplating his future and dreaming of bigger things. The untimely death of his firefighter father as a child (a fact pulled from Davidson’s real life – his father passed away rescuing civilians in 9/11) has haunted Scott for his whole life, causing some severe mental and behavioural issues that he has struggled to deal with and has numbed through drugs. With his sister Claire (Maude Apatow) graduating, Scott finds himself at something of a crossroads, forced to consider his future and whether he should pursue his dream of opening up a tattoo parlour restaurant, whilst also juggling his casual relationship with lifelong friend Kelsey (Bel Powley) and the arrival of his widowed mother’s (Maria Tomei) new boyfriend Ray (Bill Burr). Whilst navigating this perfect storm of personal problems Scott must also deal with a resurgence of his mental illness, causing him to doubt the right decisions he makes while still managing a number of exceedingly irrational ones.
The key question I have for The King of Staten Island and Pete Davidson in particular is what is the purpose of it? The film’s biggest flaw seems to be that the message is so jumbled and confused that I’m not really sure what the overall themes at play are and to try and get to the bottom of the problem I believe it’s necessary to look at Davidson’s real story. The most understandable part of Davidson’s real-life narrative is his sudden and dramatic rise to fame through his personal life. He was never one of the biggest players on Saturday Night Live during his tenure and it was easy to empathise and feel slightly bad for someone thrust into the limelight because of a relationship with one of the biggest pop stars on the planet in Ariana Grande; it’s essentially the plot of Notting Hill come to life. Davidson’s decision to make the character of Scott so hopeless and almost unlikeable is baffling, especially when the arc to really dig deep into his public persona and the exacerbation of his mental illnesses is seemingly so obvious. The real Davidson likes to portray his image as this slacker loser but in reality has obviously put in a lot of hard work to get to the position he is in today.
Scott, on the other hand, is utterly useless and blames everyone around him for his inability to make decisions. The character’s motivations are woefully underdeveloped, with the storyline around Scott’s desire to open up a tattoo parlour only cropping up when the other, more interesting plot-lines around his mother’s boyfriend or his sister’s inability to move on with her life because of him seems to grind to a halt or run out of steam. It doesn’t ever feel like Scott ever really wants to pursue tattooing as a full time career and as a result it becomes hard to see the admittedly sweet character moments between Davidson and Bill Burr that stem from this plot-line as anything more than a joke. It is unclear if Davidson and co-writers Judd Apatow and Dave Sirus have threaded the storylines in the film together in such a jumbled way as some kind of a visual representation of the scattered thoughts and mental clouding that Scott’s depression causes, but if that is the goal then they have achieved it. The constant switching of Scott’s motivations doesn’t actually work towards building any empathy for the character from the audience, and it’s hard to really get invested in Scott’s love-life with Kelsey when he constantly treats her terribly as he does similarly to his sister. It plays as a straight up drama rather than a comedy, focusing on the devastating ripple effects that a traumatic event can have on a child; following them through to adulthood. It’s just a pity that you have to dig so far into it to really understand what they were going for (even then I’m not so sure; this is just me trying to make sense of it all) and the billing of this as a comedy may be misleading to audiences.
If it seems like I’m drawing too many similarities between Davidson and his character and paying too much attention to his real life, it is because Davidson has given the impression that this is his story. In interviews he has made it clear that he hopes this will help audiences understand him and he has gone so far as to shoot the production in his native Staten Island, with many of his friends in supporting roles including rappers Machine Gun Kelly and Action Bronson as well as his childhood friend and co-writer Dave Sirus. Therefore I think that it is fair to draw comparisons between the real narrative and the film, and in many ways this is an excellent look at mental illness and the harm it can cause someone. What it isn’t, however, is particularly funny, which is a shame given Davidson’s track record. He’s excellent in the role, particularly the dramatic scenes and there are a handful of laugh-out-loud moments, but for the most part the jokes fall flat and don’t showcase anything particularly different from the standard fare on Davidson’s irregular “Weekly Update” segments on Saturday Night Live. The real star of the show here is stand-up comedian Bill Burr as Ray, the potential step-father to Scott who isn’t afraid to show him some tough loving in order to stir him into getting his life in order. Burr has always been a phenomenal stand-up comedian and one of the best working today, but his transition here to a key supporting, if not lead role, is wonderful. It isn’t the most joke-heavy role in the film but Burr never fails to make an impact and at the very least brings a chuckle to every scene, even if only through his delivery of a line. I hope that we get to see him in more comedies going forward because the man oozes talent and can clearly translate his stand-up persona to the screen in the right roles.
My experience with The King of Staten Island was an interesting one. I went in expecting a comedy. That is what the trailers and talent in-front of and behind the camera sold me on. As a comedy I can say that The King of Staten Island isn’t a particularly funny one and ranks towards the bottom of Judd Apatow’s filmography; but as a dramatic study of a young man learning to embrace the trauma of his past and accept it as a part of himself in order to move on with his life the film absolutely delivers, with a commanding lead performance from Pete Davidson and excellent supporting work from Bill Burr. While I think the story could have benefitted greatly from making the character of Scott more empathetic and likeable, his story still made me reflect on just how difficult Davidson has had it and I can only imagine how rough it must have been for the guy being thrust into the spotlight. At the end of the day however, the demand for that deep introspective look into Davidson’s psyche probably isn’t as high today as it may have been a few years ago, and I can’t really recommend that this heavy, rarely funny comedy is anything you need to flock to the newly reopened cinemas (in Australia at least) to see.
The King of Staten Island stars Pete Davidson, Bill Burr, Maude Apatow, Bel Powley, Ricky Velez & Marisa Tomei – Available to rent on VOD in America and in Australian cinemas now.