By Dan Skip Allen

“Club Kid” took the world by storm back in May at the Festival de Cannes. It received a 7-minute standing ovation because of its queer themes and heartwarming story.. It’s the first feature film from writer/director Jordan Firstman. It was so widely praised at the festival that it spawned a bidding war that was won by A24 for the whopping price of $17 million dollars. Firstman also stars in the film along with young co-star Reggie Absolom, Cara Delevigne, and Diego Cala. This is a queer story that will connect with its audience, I’m sure, but it also has a crossover storyline that will elicit a lot of emotions, I’m sure.

Peter Green (Jordan Firstman) is a hard partying queer club promoter in New York City. He has made a reputation as the man to know in the nightclub scene. He provides drugs and other things the queer and LGBT community are looking for. He has a close friend, Sophie (Cara Delevigne, Paper Towns), who he hangs out with, among others. They start a business together, but as he continues his life of drugs, drinking and partying, they drift apart. He starts to realize he needs to do something to change his ways. That comes sooner than later as a woman, played by Kirby Howell-Baptiste, he met once drops a bombshell on him. She says he accidentally had sex with her friend at a nightclub ten years prior, and they conceived a child together in a drunken drug fueled mayhem. She is now deceased, and he is with the woman at his Peters apartment. His name is Arlo (Reggie Absolom), and she drops him off and leaves hastily. This leaves this man to figure out what to do with this young boy. 

This film has a cold opening that shows who this man was before the bombshell was dropped on him. This scene was pretty wild. It had a fast-paced adrenaline fueled dance sequence with techno music and a lot of drugs. Peter and his friends, a bunch of drag queens, are the most popular people at the clubs. They know everybody. Even people they don’t know come up to him and want to talk. They want to get a rib off of him and his friends.They work their way around the room like celebrities. Here they are. This is a lifestyle that a lot of young people are into, twentysomethings. I remember back when I was drinking heavily that a lot of college girls and guys would come out and party like this in my town. Nothing is like New York, though this has become a business for this man, and he makes good money off of organizing these gatherings each night at different clubs.

The hard partying, alcohol and drugs catch up to this man. Life in the form of a young son hits him over the head. Firstman transforms from this lifestyle to a man who has to change fast. He gets to know this young man and starts to get close to him. He has a genuine father son connection with this boy. From a music perspective and how the youngster behaves. He’s not a troublemaker. He’s a good kid. He brings something to the table for Firstman’s character that opens his eyes to a whole world. Firstman, who I haven’t seen in anything before this does a great job balancing these two separate lives he has. As the writer of the script, he knew what buttons to push for his character to be sympathetic in the viewers’ eyes. He is amazing in this film, and I resonated with him somewhat. Also this film might remind you of the 1999 film “Big Daddy”. They have a similar narrative structure. 

As for young Absolom, who plays Arlo, you can tell he’s a newcomer to acting, but he has a vibe about him that made me care about his performance as this character. He wasn’t doing anything special, but I think Firstman got a lot more out of him than other directors could have gotten. Absolom is another on a long line of child actors who pull at the heartstrings. He’s a good-looking kid that I’m sure will elicit the waterworks from his situation in this film. A phone call between the two, father and son, will rip your heart out. It’s the emotional tie to the story and the characters the movie needed. That’s what makes it so good. I was crying my eyes out at the end of this film. That’s how much it wrecked me emotionally. I need that.

Firstman, as a first time feature length director, did a great job. He points out his unique style and spin on this film. From the nightclub sequences being too high energy to the slower, more character driven scenes, he made sure to differentiate from the two worlds he lives in. I loved that. It takes a skilled director to balance separate kinds of vibes within the same story. Even the cinematography is completely different, which allows both of these separate storylines to thrive on their own merits. This writer/director is going to be one to watch out for in the future.

The supporting cast is pretty good in this movie. They don’t take away from the main characters at all but add to the narrative. Two funny characters were Nicky played by Eldar Isgandarov (The Debut) and Evelyn played by Calleen Camp. They are Peter’s ex-roommate and next-door neighbor. They added a lighter side to a very serious film at times. Another key character is Oscar, played by Diego Calva (Babylon). He’s Arlo’s social worker who becomes intimate friends with Peter later in the movie.  He added a grounded feeling to this story that needed this kind of connection to the narrative and characters. Last but not least are Saffron (Saturn Risin9), Miss Benny (Almi), and Hana (Alaska Riley). They are the Trans friends that Peter hangs with at the clubs, but they also help him realize his situation needs to be different.  They help him change his ways while they are still who they are. They are a hoot in this movie. I had a good laugh at them. 

“Club Kid” is a mix of a party film and heartfelt father son story. The party scenes are filled with drugs and alcohol with techno music. This is a distinct look at a specific subsection of America. The heart and soul of the story is the relationship between father and son. They had a great time for the most part in the context of this movie. Both Firstman and Absolom did a terrific job opposite one another. The rest of the supporting cast from Delevigne, to Calvo, and everyone else were all very good and added a nice element to the two main storylines. Firstman was able to balance everything going on in a nice way. As a first-time director, he did a great job. You wouldn’t know it if you hadn’t seen his full-length feature film like I did. This film was one of the best I’ve seen this year even though it reminded me of another one from 1999. They were slightly different, but I resonated with them both on different levels. This one hit on a different scale, though. I think once people see it, they’ll know what I mean by that.

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 1/2