For years, the internet has been fascinated with Pete Davidson. He’s the younger, more modern version of an intriguing celebrity – intriguing not because he’s mysterious or unknowable, but because he’s the opposite. From Davidson’s public relationships with stars like Ariana Grande to his openness about mental health issues, Davidson is constantly addressing the narrative about his life head-on, often in brief segments on SNL.
So it makes sense that Davidson’s biggest film role yet would be one of the more personal, semi-autobiographical variety. It also makes sense that the project was helmed by director Judd Apatow, who often uses comedy as a vehicle to examine how we cope not with life’s biggest moments, but with its daily grind (see: Freaks and Geeks, This is 40, and Funny People).
Co-written by Davidson, Apatow, and Dave Sirus, The King of Staten Island stars Davidson as Scott, a 20-something aspiring tattoo artist who lives with his mom Margie (Marisa Tomei). Besides his desire to be a tattoo artist, Scott’s life is painted as fairly directionless. Most of it has been tinged by the loss of his father, a firefighter, when he was only a child. In the opening scene we see Scott intentionally lose control of his vehicle in a passive attempt at suicide, and in the next we see him smoking weed with his friends and making jokes about his dead dad, which he claims to be over but obviously isn’t.
Scott’s lack of momentum is called into question when his mother starts dating again for the first time since losing her husband – coincidentally, the man she starts dating is also a firefighter, Ray (Bill Burr). As the couple gets closer, Scott and Ray butt heads, as you might expect, and when Scott’s mother gets fed up and throws them both out of the house, Scott is forced to strike out on his own and grow up.
It’s hard to keep track of the obvious and known parallels between Scott and Davidson’s own life, but we can start with his mother and father: Davidson’s father was a firefighter who was killed when responding on 9/11, and his mother is a nurse whom he still lives with today. Scott mentions, in passing, that he has Crohn’s disease, which Davidson also has. There’s his allegiance to Staten Island, Davidson’s own place of residence. And there’s the character’s suicide attempt, which may conjure imagery from an incident in which Davidson posted a worrying message to Instagram. And these are just the public facts about Davidson’s life that see a parallel. It’s not hard to imagine there are more in so many of the themes, feelings, and struggles Scott encounters throughout The King of Staten Island.
Because autobiographical inserts aside, at its core, The King of Staten Island is about grief, and the sacrifice someone makes when they lose someone they love. In a moment towards the back half of the film, someone tells Scott that he appreciates Scott’s sacrifice, to which Scott replies: “I didn’t do anything.” This moment perfectly encapsulates Scott’s struggle. He had no choice or control over what happened to his father, but he’s been suffocated by his loss for most of his life. He’s angry, at one point complaining that firefighters should never have children if they’re doing a job so risky, but he’s also conflicted by his reverence for his father, of whom he only knows stories that depict an impossibly perfect hero and devoted dad. These issues take a serious toll on Scott’s mental health, to the point that he refuses to get involved in any serious relationships, treating himself as too damaged and too much of a burden to be with anyone else.
But as painful as that all sounds, it’s also wrapped in a banter-ish comedy, which largely works, but as it is with any Apatow film, occasionally doesn’t. It may sound like a strange genre for the story, but the blurry line between tragedy and comedy has been documented to the degree that it even has a name: the sad clown paradox, which posits that humor sometimes evolve as a tool for self-preservation.
You never really escape the feeling that Davidson’s playing himself in The King of Staten Island, but that’s what makes his performance work so well. He embodies that thin, warped line between the state of comedy and tragedy, digging his heels in during the first half of the film to create a character so self-destructive that he comes off as unlikeable. The hardest moments to watch in The King of Staten Island are probably in this first half, where Davidson is at times almost too convincing in his self-absorbed, destructive state, over-using comedy as a protective shield in a way that doesn’t always feel funny.
But Davidson’s performance somehow makes it all work, because you eventually find yourself rooting for and siding with Scott, even when you know he has it wrong. Because The King of Staten Island’s best moments aren’t rooted in comedy, but in its more sincere, earnest side. That’s an interesting reversal for a studio comedy, which often go through the motions of fake sentimentality and generic character growth, grafted onto more genuinely funny moments of ad-libbed humor. To that end, it’s likely Tomei’s unwavering performance may be unfairly underlooked – simply because it’s less personally tethered to the actress in the way Davidson’s is – but it’s equally pivotal, charting her character’s firm growth from accommodating to independent.
Studio comedies are becoming something of an endangered species at the box office in recent years, and it’s even harder to find one that actually has heart. At the end of the day it’s hard not to find yourself cheering on the success of everyone involved.