Rating: R | Runtime: 136 minutes
Release Date: June 12th, 2020 (USA)
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director(s): Judd Apatow
Writer(s): Judd Apatow, Pete Davidson & Dave Sirus

Thanks for the sex. It was wonderful until you started talking.

I’m surprised how much I enjoyed The Kind of Staten Island. I like Judd Apatow films and find Pete Davidson funny, but its semi-autobiography pushing well past a two-hour runtime seemed like the worst tendencies of both being married together. And regardless of whether that marriage succeeded, this is still true. It’s somewhat bloated (repetitive, but never boring) and “Bupkis” coming out this week as another semi-autobiography does make you wonder if Davidson has anything else to offer creatively. But maybe that stuff is also part of its charm. It doesn’t feel polished or fake. It lets its characters be messy so that we can simultaneously laugh at them and understand their pain. And for all the early hijinks, the second half proves an effectively emotional evolution.

Scott (Pete Davidson) has been able to coast by as a freeloader under his widowed mother’s (Marisa Tomei’s Margie) roof this long (his father died battling a fire when he was seven) because his younger sister Claire (Maude Apatow) was there as a buffer. As long as Mom put her upbringing at the forefront, Scott could ride the wave of free meals and no rent. So, when she goes off to college, the dynamic can’t help but shift. It doesn’t necessarily have to if he got his head far enough out of his backside to realize that companionship and empathy would go a long way towards continuing this domestic arrangement, but we’re talking about a selfish, self-pitying twenty-four-year-old stoner who’s been “finding himself” for a decade. Scott is therefore an adult. Margie doesn’t need to cater to his whims. She can date. Redecorate. Finally kick him out of the nest.

It’s not the smoothest of transitions, but one that needs to happen if either of them are going to attempt finding happiness in a present and future that shouldn’t constantly be beholden to their shared past of loss. Margie starts dating Ray (Bill Burr), a firefighter like her first husband. Scott’s best friend and maybe girlfriend Kelsey (Bel Powley) wants to get her life together and needs him to be serious about whether he wants to be part of it. And his friends (Ricky Velez, Lou Wilson, and Moises Arias) decide pivoting from nickel and dime drug dealing to robbery is “constructive”. Life has thrown Scott into the deep-end and his attempt at treading water is to intentionally sabotage those around him so everything can return to the tragic status quo. For the first time ever, though, they all decline.

The film admittedly takes way too long to set all that up, but it’s all entertaining enough to understand why Apatow left it all in (choppy editing or not). We’re talking a full hour to get to the breaking point we all know is coming because this whole exercise is wasted if it doesn’t. That’s when things get good. When Scott’s safety net is stolen away and he must choose his actions and words more carefully. It’s not a coincidence then that his friends disappear from the story. Or that Kelsey and Margie do too (albeit because they made is so he disappeared from theirs). This is about Scott coming to grips with his issues. Accepting and acknowledging them as more than a crutch and excuse. It leads to some really wonderful moments (I love the scenes with him and Ray’s kids) while never losing the acerbic bite of Davidson’s delivery.

---

Marisa Tomei and Pete Davidson in THE KING OF STATEN ISLAND.