DAVIDSON STEPS UP IN ‘THE KING OF STATEN ISLAND'

The protagonists in Judd Apatow movies don’t generally have their stuff together. They are emotionally stunted, occasionally underachieving, unmotivated to change and often even border on unlikable. But whether it’s Seth Rogen’s stoner-entrepreneur, Steve Carell’s 40-year-old virgin or Adam Sandler’s depressed movie star, there has always been at least some separation between the actor and the character.

That shield of fiction is pushed aside in his latest, “ The King of Staten Island,” in which Pete Davidson (a co-writer and producer on the film) lays bare many of his personal struggles for our entertainment and edification, from losing his firefighter father at the age of 7 to living with Crohn’s disease, in this tale of a Staten Island loser who is more than happy to just drift.

It is the kind of personal project that could have gone wrong in so many ways. All you need is for the lead to lack a certain self-awareness or for the filmmaker to be too protective. But somehow, and despite its bloated runtime, Davidson and Apatow have made a film that is honest, entertaining and humane. That is no small feat considering Davidson’s character Scott is one of the most unlikable Apatow leads (at least at first).