*NOTE: The following is an essay that got rejected by Bright Wall/Dark Room for their upcoming issue. Please do not take this as a criticism of their services.
Days had passed since I watched The King of Staten Island (2020), and yet I couldn’t stop thinking about it. On the surface, it was your conventional Judd Apatow comedy that was overlong and ripe on sentimentality. Prior to January, I hadn’t even given its lead, Pete Davidson, a fighting chance since I believed he was an underachieving no-name. I still feel that way today, but somehow it doesn’t feel like the insult that it once did.
So why did this film take up residency in my head like Davidson’s Scott Carlin in his mother’s basement? I can hear it back there laughing as he pulls out a tattoo needle, ready to give his friend an impulsive drawing. Even if it looks like someone stretched a drawing of Barrack Obama to the point of grotesquely uneven eyes, it serves as a reminder of trust. This is all that Scott has and you want to believe that one day he’ll ink a masterpiece onto your bicep. Maybe he would if he ever stepped out from behind a billowing cloud of marijuana smoke, realizing that taking the next step involves a commitment to the unknown. It’s something that he’s uncomfortable with, believing that risks could kill him. Why even try?
If there’s any direction that Scott has, it’s the desire to open a restaurant where people can also get tattoos. Not a single person believes in his dream, especially as they sport his artwork that would make Pablo Picasso blush. They can only imagine that once he goes out into the world that he will be beaten up. As an already emotionally fragile man, it could be the death of him. He’s a man who life has passed by, and you can find the weariness in his eyes. He’s only 24, and yet he has very little to show for himself. He doesn’t even have a high school diploma to proudly display next to his Child’s Play 2 (1990) poster.
I think that was the point that he began to feel painfully real. In the echelon of movie characters, there have been few Millennials that feel as vulnerable as Scott Carlin. For a generation who has been considered one of the most depressed and hopeless, it’s strange to know that there aren’t that many mascots tackling the emotional struggles of being in your 20’s in the modern age. Most of us came of age following 9/11. We’ve lived through war and economic struggles. We’re living through 2020 (go ahead and take your pick). What exactly do we have to be happy about when we don’t know any better?
It is the disconnect that keeps Scott from the world around him. As his sister goes to college, he’s forced to attend a celebration that he’d rather not be at. Scott has never gotten the support that he needs to feel good about himself. His friends spend the film contemplating a robbery for pharmaceutical pills, and Scott only goes along because of the reality if he doesn’t: he would be alone.
Nothing drives him more than absence. He thinks of his father, a firefighter who died in action on 9/11, and uses it as a crutch. The number of jokes centered on death reflect a deeper uncertainty in Scott’s character, especially in a scene where he chastises a group of firefighters at a baseball game, asking them why they even have families. If they die, they will leave so much behind including family. He can’t get over the fact that not everything has a morbid finale. If he’s paralyzed by any fear, its experiencing love only to lose it. That’s why the closest he gets to people is from behind a cloud of weed, having his friends ask not how he’s doing, but why he has a Jaws (1975) tattoo proudly displayed over his heart. Anything to divert from a deeper connection.
The more time that I spent thinking about Scott Carlin, the more that I realized bits of him in my 24-year-old self. Not everyone is guaranteed to jump out of the gate and get it right immediately. Some of us will spend an extended period stuck in a second childhood, only with access to vices that are a lot more fun. There isn’t as much risk of watching movies all night because “we’re adults.” Those formative years are the first time most of us venture into the world without a net, though some still have their ankle twisted in the knots.
Much like Scott, I was 24 and not exactly my best self. I sympathize with him because I had my own embarrassing trajectory. There was a selfishness to my life, not really taking into account other’s emotions and sometimes saying the crassest thing because I thought others would get the joke. All that did was distance me from them. I even got temporarily expelled from college for getting a bit too mad at my co-host on our radio show.
I was a mess. By the next year, I would drop-out from my community college of five years and try to reassess what mattered in my life. By that time my friends weren’t only at universities, but they were getting married and having all of these personal accomplishments. If I used them as a measurement of my own success, I had failed. I deserved to burrow back into a hole and die.
That is why I notice myself in Scott, going to graduation parties for his sister, and being too scared to talk to anyone. As he says repeatedly, some people would rather just sit in the corner and watch others. It made sense because what did he have to say that wasn’t different from the last time they had met up? He still didn’t have that tattoo restaurant, nor had he achieved anything of personal substance. As an adult, he was a failure who had to watch every defeating blow be paralleled by somebody else as they were able to get out of Staten Island, NY, and go onto better things.
After all, Staten Island isn’t exactly a place that inspires enthusiasm. Of the Five Burroughs, its only real accomplishment is having cheap housing and being across the bay from the more romanticized Manhattan, which also has bigger opportunities. To be king isn’t the high compliment that it’s made out to be. It’s just wandering around dingy parks, looking out at the bay, and trying to find ways to escape the torment inside. Considering that Scott is riddled with ADHD and Crohn’s Disease, there’s a lot inside this fragile body to worry about.
Being a 24-year-old failure is difficult, especially when nobody believes in your cause. I hadn’t only failed college, I was way behind my friends to the point that I felt like a permanent screw-up. While I had used my writing skills to profess my affection for others, it can be seen as this insecurity that I couldn’t offer them anything better. All I had was this moment etched into something, able to be kept as a memento. As a writer, I’m always critical of how I wrote years ago, and part of me feels disappointed that those friends couldn’t see me now, a man who has actually done something of substance with his life.
I suppose this depression eventually lead me to the quarter-life crisis. At the time I had never heard anyone use it, but it felt so real. I needed to organize my priorities and get my life in order. If you ask me, I didn’t figure myself out until 25, and I have been much more satisfied once I learned not only to listen but to focus and have more compassion. While it made me prouder of my work, it also made me much too critical of my past, wishing that I had certain things to do over, if just to prove that I was capable of so much more.
That is why I see Scott Carlin as a patron saint of the quarter-life crisis. I have never seen a character that felt as indicative of this crossroad with such raw honesty. Our experiences may be very different otherwise, but there is something to being midway through your 20s and being insecure about your future. When so much of your life has been closer to a cautionary tale narrative, what is there to keep you from stumbling into worse and worse situations until you have nothing left? Why not live in this basic level of comfort that has always been there? You can’t fail if you don’t try.
Most of the time I’ve seen Millennial characters in a quarter-life crisis more in line with Davidson’s other major 2020 role. In Big Time Adolescence (2020), he plays a similar character in Zeke, who deals drugs and doesn’t pick up on social cues. While both of these films feature him giving children tattoos and blowing smoke from every orifice, Big Time Adolescence is a film I’d expect more from the reputation that Davidson has acquired over the years.
He is a loser goofball that you keep around because of those few moments where he makes sense. It’s when you need a break from your serious life and need to remember that time you hot-boxed in your car to DMX. The film is more of a cautionary tale for protagonist Monroe (Griffin Gluck), who goes through the wilding out phase and finds the point where the excess becomes awkward. Zeke may have a job by the end, but he’s still doing the bare minimum to get by.
What I think makes The King of Staten Island more powerful is the overlying sense of support that went into the film. There’s nothing wrong with Big Time Adolescence, but it’s too much of a conventional narrative of stunted growth. The reason that Scott Carlin feels richer is not only because Davidson penned the movie, claiming that it’s “100% me,” but because both on-screen and off, there is the sense that what Davidson really wants is a mentor figure, someone who will make sense of his raw energy and find the charisma inside. It’s how I felt watching his special Alive in New York (2020), which was simultaneously brilliant and an afterthought.
I really do think that there’s something to see in Judd Apatow serving as a mentor. As a producer, he’s fostered the careers of hundreds of comedians, finding their inner potential and allowing them to become something more interesting. Given that his work since Knocked Up (2007) has grown increasingly paternal, it makes sense that he finds something in Davidson that nobody else has really latched onto. Add into this that he cast his daughter, Maude Apatow, as Scott’s sister and it already feels like the adoption papers are waiting to be signed.
There was something inside this anxiety-riddled bundle of nerves that was worth exploring, and Judd Apatow found it. You feel like he’s teaching Davidson to walk, where every line has come with a few fumbles before landing on its best self. The subject may be about Millennial ennui, but the tone has this comfort and love of a father figure overlooking Scott’s journey, hoping that he’ll wade through the murk until he comes out happier and more fulfilled. This film works because Apatow clearly loves Scott more than we ever could, and it makes even the most winding of moments have something inspiring.
For the first time, it feels like Apatow is exploring the man-child not for the punchlines, but for the deeply rooted problems that a generation has. I see this more like a drama that captures the emotional distance that we have in our mid-20s when we’re still in a narcissistic bubble. We don’t want the future to happen because it’s scary. As Scott looks at the relationships in his life, he finds signs that the traditional marriage, like his father, is dead. There’s nothing to look forward to, and that’s a real bummer.
There is an interesting supporting character named Kelsey (Bel Powley) who wants to go into real estate. She wants to help improve the image of Staten Island and is in the midst of taking her license test throughout the film. There is this genuine concern, a desperation to make her self-worth seem more valuable. It’s treated as tragic throughout the film, especially compared to Scott’s view of the city, which is riddled with lowlifes doing anything to get by.
And yet this is where the story ends: with Scott turning to Kelsey and helping her study for the test. As they cross the bay, Scott takes joy in seeing Kelsey succeed. While he still sees himself as dumb, he is there as a form of support. It’s something that he couldn’t even give his mother for something as simple as clothes shopping. There is a minor sense of growth, if just by leaving his comfort zone and being forced to see the world differently.
Kelsey’s symbolism is indicative of many strains of the film. This has been entirely about how Scott sees Staten Island. It’s in ignoring his mom, disapproving of the fire department, and even restaurant bussing. It isn’t until he begins to take risks and allow these elements in does he realize that there’s a life beyond the death that’s concerned his life. He no longer needs to hide behind a marijuana cloud, having people ask him about his Mars Attacks (1996) tattoo. He’s on his way to understanding the nuance of life that accomplishments come in many forms.
Kelsey may have not been the driving force for a lot of this, but by ending the story with her getting a license it shows a trajectory towards finding a more literal sense of worth. Will Scott’s life change for the better? He’s proven capable of so much over the past 137 minutes. As Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness” plays, it features lines like “If I fall, if I die, know I lived it to the fullest” that suggests that Scott will be just fine.
I am thankful to see my quarter-life crisis firmly in my rearview mirror. It’s almost nonexistent now. Still, the moment when you begin changing for the better is one that’s a bit pathetic and may be empty, where pointless things for the last time will be the most meaningful. When you begin working towards a change, there is a lot of acceptance that what you’re doing is wrong and that you need to change how you not only see the world but yourself.
I found my support group once I began to open up, finding small moments of worth popping up here and there. I found opportunities where I never thought to look before. If you were to talk to anyone about it, you probably would be laughed at because of how inconsequential it all looks. And yet, it seemed important for me to drop out of college for two years to clear my head, focus my writing career, and experiment with ways to make money off of it. Because of that scorched earth approach, I feel more confident about where I am in life. I even finally got that college diploma after 11 years.
So when I watch The King of Staten Island, I don’t just see the archetypal Judd Apatow man-child comedy that he’s been milking for almost 20 years. Here is a genuine effort to explore a pain that has inflicted a generation, and yet hasn’t really been captured all that well on film before. Save for Frances Ha (2013), I don’t know that there’s a strong counterpoint.
In a lot of ways, Pete Davidson is the type of artist who feels like he would’ve stumbled onto something this transparent and universal eventually. I would love to say that he’s at the start of a great career, but it still feels like he’ll stumble for another few years, trying to find collaborators that understand his gifts like Apatow. I’m sure he’ll be fine, but I worry that he’ll just fall back into the man he talks about on Alive in New York: a bit player on Saturday Night Live who is constantly getting high just to fight off anxiety while annoying the guest host.
Then again, if I can get through my quarter-life crisis and turn out just fine, then what’s stopping Davidson from realizing his full potential? I still don’t think he’s always that charismatic, but that’s kind of true of who I was at 24. I’m sure that The King of Staten Island will become more endearing as I get older, reminding myself not only of a time when I had it worse but how much better I’ve become since. We all need reminders now and then if just to know something that isn’t always apparent: life will be okay. Even if it doesn’t seem that way for a while, all you have to do is walk through the smoke and see the clear picture on the other side.
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