Throwing down behavioural anomalies thick and fast does little to make you warm to Scott’s plight in life. His charms are not self-evident, but staying the course does pay dividends. Losing his fireman father at a young age and having an overprotective mother played with sass and a bad haircut by the excellent Marisa Tomei has given him a non-reality world to get lost in. And lost he is.

Davidson, who lost his real-life fireman father in the 9/11 attacks, co-wrote the story with Apatow and Dave Sirus and it mines a world that must have felt very raw at times. The Saturday Night Live alumni’s goofy stoner guy persona is in full effect here but it rings true to the story and his unapologetic approach works this time out.

Trying to experience the film as a journey from a man child’s stilted adolescence into the maturity of adulthood gives the work a little too much responsibility to live up to. Stick with it though and it does come around to win you over in the end. A less extreme transformation might have been more believable but it would have been a lot less entertaining.

Rob Hudson
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He’s now reached his mid-20s having achieved little, chasing a dream of becoming a tattoo artist that seems far out of reach. As his ambitious younger sister (Maude Apatow, HBO’s Euphoria) heads off to college, Scott is still living with his exhausted ER nurse mother (Oscar® winner Marisa Tomei) and spends his days smoking weed, hanging with the guys—Oscar (Ricky Velez, Master of None), Igor (Moises Arias, Five Feet Apart) and Richie (Lou Wilson, TV’s The Guest Book)—and secretly hooking up with his childhood friend Kelsey (Bel Powley, Apple TV+’s The Morning Show).

But when his mother starts dating a loudmouth firefighter named Ray (Bill Burr, Netflix’s F Is for Family), it sets off a chain of events that will force Scott to grapple with his grief and take his first tentative steps toward moving forward in life. The film also stars Steve Buscemi as Papa, a veteran firefighter who takes Scott under his wing, and Pamela Adlon (FX’s Better Things) as Ray’s ex-wife, Gina.

The King of Staten Island will be released in Australian cinemas July 16!
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