Unlike many New York City
residents, I’ve actually spent time on Staten Island. Though the island
constitutes one of the city’s five boroughs, residents of the Bronx, Queens,
Brooklyn, and Manhattan rarely set foot in what is primarily an urban bedroom
community, best reached by the picturesque Staten Island Ferry. But the island
has its own patois, its own zoo, its own beaches, and even its own (minor
league) baseball team, the Staten Island Yankees.
The mixed sense of pride and
embarrassment felt by the residents is conveyed in a raucous but sweet new Judd
Apatow comedy, The King of Staten Island. It begins with a clutch of
layabout buddies not far into adulthood. Their natural topics of conversation
include their chances of scoring good dope and the fact they consider their
locale a dead end. Says one, “Why can’t we be cool, like Brooklyn?” Gripes
another, “We’re the only place New Jersey looks down on.”
Central to this conversation
is Scott, whose dream is to open a combination tattoo parlor and restaurant, to
be named Ruby Tattoosday. Like the rest of his life, this dream isn’t going
anywhere. At age 24, he doesn’t have a real job and lives at home with his
widowed mom. Among his friends he riffs about his neuroses and physical issues
(ADD, Crohn’s Disease, you name it) and seems to make light of the fact that
his father, a local firefighter, died during a rescue mission in a hotel fire
when Scott was seven. It’s clear, though, that having a Hero Dad has made his
own life seem insignificant by comparison.
Apatow wrote this film along
with comedians Dave Sirus and Pete Davidson. Davidson plays the leading role,
one that reflects the broad strokes of his own life. He too was raised on
Staten Island, has a host of physical and mental issues, and lost a firefighter-dad
in the rubble of the World Trade Center. That’s probably why he seems so wholly
credible as Scott, a slacker who is both foul-mouthed and funny, both
bone-headed and soft-hearted, dumb enough to get involved in a criminal
enterprise and yet smart enough to have the potential to move forward. I don’t
think it’s an accident that the film’s final scene finds him on that Staten
Island Ferry, heading for Manhattan. This isn’t Saturday Night Fever,
but still there’s a sense that, given enough love and guidance, he has the
potential to move into a healthy adult life.
A first-rate cast handles
with gusto the profanity-laced script. It’s good to see Marisa Tomei, once the
Brooklyn bombshell of My Cousin Vinny, as Scott’s plucky mother, who
finds love in the most unexpected place. When Tomei won a Best Supporting
Actress Oscar for her Vinny role critics scoffed, unwilling to recognize
the brilliance of her comic performance. Years later she nabbed additional
nominations for heavily dramatic roles in The Wrestler and In the
Bedroom, but I’m glad the current film makes room for her blue-collar spunk
as well as her tender heart. There’s also a wonderfully credible sense of blunt
camaraderie among the firemen with whom Scott eventually finds a home away from
home. I can think of no better compliment than to say that they all feel very
real indeed. And such wry throwaway dialogue as (at an emotional moment), “We
don’t have to get all Oprah” helps keep the film’s potential sentimentality at
bay.
Anyway, there’s not much
place for the sentimental in a film that climaxes in a bizarre tattooing
session. Personally, I loathe tattoos, but I loved The King of Staten
Island.
A fond farewell to the talented Milton Glaser, to the irreplaceable Carl Reiner, and to the enigmatic Charles Webb, who wrote the novel that became the film The Graduate. More to come!