THE KING OF STATEN ISLAND

*Mild Spoilers*

You don’t see many films that explore the grief and feelings of the children left behind when a parent dies. It’s a tough subject that needs to be dealt with sensitively but, above all, honestly.

Judd Apatow’s THE KING OF STATEN ISLAND tells the semi-autobiographical story of Pete Davidson (provisionally playing himself) as Scott Carlin, who has been traumatised since the age of seven, when his father, a firefighter, died in the conflagration of 9/11.

The trauma and suspended grief show themselves in Scott, now twenty-four and still living at home, inwardly as an inability to “act his age” or accept any kind of responsibility, and outwardly in his clothing choices (he still dresses like a 14 year old) and the numerous tattoos on his body. So far, so obvious, but Davidson’s performance and the freewheeling story - that is structured intricately on examination - lift the film into something extraordinary, and make it Apatow’s best.

Particularly touching are the scenes between Scott and the two young children he has to walk to school. Scott begrudgingly comes alive when he is with the youngsters, who are products of a different kind of broken home, and he allows their formative identities to flourish momentarily under his charge. The children belong to a man named Ray, played by Bill Burr, who is dating Scott’s mother. Ray is a firefighter. Scott loathes him. At a baseball match with Ray and his work team, Scott tells them that firefighters should never be allowed to have children. It’s a key statement and the men react differently to it. The statement will be responded to properly, later in the film, by “Papa”, the old man of the crew played by Steve Buscemi, himself a former NY firefighter.

Scott doesn’t want Ray replacing his father and he doesn’t want to allow his mother - a keen and sensitive performance from Marisa Tomei - to move on. It would disrupt the small world he has allowed his grief to carve out for himself.

Yet Scott is able to bond with Ray’s children better than he can with his younger sister, Claire (played deftly by Judd Apatow’s daughter, Maude). It is through the school walks with the children that Scott senses the potential to change. The relationship with Claire, however, is hampered by their sharing too much emotional baggage. In one scene, he tells her she is lucky because she was too young to remember how cool their dad was, and he accuses her of being better off for not having to suffer loss the way he does.

The exchange is typical of Scott’s self-centredness, which displays itself sometimes as acute cynicism which he will tell himself is just cruel honesty, sometimes as a form of death-wish provocation, and sometimes as an emotional numbness.

It is a numbness that makes him unwilling to commit to his girlfriend, Kelsey (played with salty aplomb by Bel Powey), or incapable of expressing thanks for a thoughtful gift given to him by his sister on the eve of her leaving for college.

This is the territory the film is constantly exploring: the family ties and the relationships wrought and wrecked by grief. Yet it does so in a naturalistic way and with a lightness of touch that allows the story to flow and never feel “too much.” It’s never overbearing.

The way it uses the large-scale tragedy of 9/11 is sensitive to the point where the references may even be missed.

My own circumstances may have me predisposed towards embracing this film, but Apatow is an important film-maker and Davidson an interesting performer, and this is a must-see.

The film is dedicated to Pete Davidson’s father.

THE KING OF STATEN ISLAND has just arrived on Sky Cinema.