A club party promoter’s life is upended when he discovers he has a ten-year-old in the charming, hilarious, character-driven CLUB KID. Writer-director-star Jordan Firstman’s film is anchored by an astounding youth performance by Reggie Absolom that I have to mention before the “read more” break.
First, Club Kid, written, directed, and starring internet comedian Jordan Firstman, features one of the year’s best youth performances. As Arlo, the sudden “you have a kid!” ten-year-old pushed into party boy Peter Green’s life, Reggie Absolom is grounded and knowing, exuding kindness and maturity in his eyes, with fantastic chemistry with his on-screen father, played by Firstman. But in no way is Absolom precocious or annoying, the “wise beyond his years” stereotype. Just a damned great performance. But one that is emblematic of the film on the whole. A slightly fabelistic story of growing up, but naturally told with strong charisma across the board, fantastically written and performed characters, and just a total likability to it all. A likable easiness glides through Club Kid.
Club Kid is, distilled down, an Adult Child Forced to Grow Up story, as Firstman’s Peter Green is a barely functioning party organizer. A career-best Cara Delevingne’s Sophie does most of the work; he’s the likable face, and she’s the backroom busy bee, whose life is upended when The Good Place’s Kirby Howell-Baptiste’s Edison drops off Arlo, ten and raised in Britain by his flighty, party-girl mother. This, just as the professional relationship with Sophie is breaking down and forcing a shift in outlook, is made bigger now with a huge responsibility. Familiar, yes, but on the worn hanger is a hell of an outfit. A sublimely beautiful relationship dramedy, with strong characters, humor, and heart, never saccharine or forced. True, comparisons to the 1999 Adam Sandler comedy Big Daddy seem apt on the surface, but there’s a soulful depth to the world and people of Jordan Firstman’s script, film, and New York queer club scene.
Sure, so much of it might come easier than a real situation. But it’s fine. It doesn’t need to be truly real; it’s a film, not a documentary. Plenty of stories can capture the hardships of suddenly dealing with a 10-year-old, especially when you’re not in the best place in life to do so. The whole may be a simplified telling, but it’s so incredibly engaging, one doesn’t care or think of it when watching; only hearing the online cynics afterward who denounce any perceived break to unnessisably realism, who want a hard documentary of LGBTQ+, free sex, high drugs, hard party lives. It’s not that kind of movie, kid. However, Club Kid is not a flight of fancy either. Fristman’s script, combined with the groundedness of Adam Newport-Berra’s 35mm New York (with some slightly shaky handheld), finds a truth nonetheless. It’s real enough, with heart, humor, and humanity. Importantly, it feels true to itself.
Heck, it’s uplifting in the slice of New York life Firstman drops us in. Peter might have been drifting through a drug enduced haze, but its’ wonefful to find not only does he like being a dad, he’s suprsignly good at. Perhaps, trading one addiction for another; whether it be drugs or dadhood. The connection between Peter and Arlo, or Firstman and Absalom, feels genuine and real. Together, they find connections and support they haven’t felt in their lives before. It’s heartwarming and true. Thus, I felt for them. I felt for them so hard; at our tougher emotional moments, I had tears, friends. Club Kid is a film of empathy and kindness. Many might not expect that in a whirlwind world of drugs and all-night parties. But it’s there. It doesn’t uplift that lifestyle, but it doesn’t damn it as other films might. Even as Peter’s focus shifts to a perhaps more boring “adult” life, it’s just moving on, not a rebuke of the past.
It helps, in part, how utterly charming it all is. I legitimately liked Peter; he’s established quickly as a decent guy; even in drug hazes, he looks to help his friends and his circle. He is loaning, rent-free, his extra room to his errant, sweetly stupid twink friend Nicky, played with a scene-stealing energy by Eldar Isgandarov. Every time Isgandarov shows up, he brightens the film (I’ve been told he does the same in The Debut; for another newcomer, what a start!). The connection between Peter, Arlo, Nicky, and neighbor Evelyn, played by Clue’s Colleen Camp, is delightful. But most so with Arlo. Peter doesn’t quite know what he’s doing, but he has help with said neighbor: his crew of partiers, including Saturn Risin9 (not a typo; 9 is part of her name) as Saffron. Oscar, a social worker played by Diego Calva, is a huge assist and another kind voice in the uncertainty, and a focus of Peter’s flirtation. I thought Calva would break out from the severely underseen Babylon, although I recognized he might be lost among the A-listers he competed with. Here, primarily with Firstman and Absalom, he shines as another naturally charismatic character in a film filled with them. It’s a film about found families and the love within them.
Club Kid is Jordan Firstman’s first film, after an unseen-by-me career as an influencer and YouTube personality (again showing this year a YouTube-to-Fantastic Filmmaker pipeline after Obsession and Backrooms, to name two), but you won’t know it. The lived-in world is presented so naturally, with just-right shot choices that keep the tight, moving script moving. There’s little unnecessary flourish; it opts for straightforward presentation, letting the script and characters do the work. I appreciate the confidence to let the story do the talking as they move through Newport-Berras’s exquisitely beautiful love letter to New York and its club scenes, just as lived-in and important but wholly different than the other New York love letter of Only Living Pickpocket in New York.
Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid is a surprising revelation. I came into the film with little knowledge of it, a complete blank slate, and was gobsmacked by the results. A truly astounding youth performance by Absalom in a sea of great performances, a strength of characters in Firstman’s script, and a wholly engaging, hilarious, sincere, and charming telling of a familiar story. Fully recommend.