Jordan Firstman arrives in theaters with Club Kid, a feature directorial debut that places a hard-partying promoter into an unexpected caretaking role.
Firstman stars as Peter, a New York figure whose decade of nightlife hedonism hits a wall when a 10-year-old child named Arlo arrives on his doorstep, according to The Boston Globe.
The story opens in Brooklyn in 2016 before jumping a decade forward, as reported by The Boston Globe. A woman from Peter’s past appears to remind him of an encounter he barely remembers, leaving him with a British passport, a birth certificate, and a young son.
Firstman wrote and directed the film while also taking the lead role, building on a career that includes writing for the HBO series Search Party and gaining a massive following on Instagram during the COVID-19 pandemic, The New Yorker reported. The cast features Reggie Absolom as Arlo, alongside Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva, Nigil Whyte, Saturn Risin9, and Colleen Camp, according to The Boston Globe and npr.org.
“I was an open wound that whole production,” Firstman told The Globe and Mail.
Production took the crew deep into subterranean New York venues, utilizing real locations that are typically difficult to access, The Globe and Mail reported. Many actual party kids from the city’s nightlife scene appear in the background of the film.
Cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra worked with Firstman to capture the atmosphere of the clubs, which The New Yorker described as a delirious immersion in queer-club culture that drives both comedy and dramatic tension. The film opens in a hallucinatory whirl of casual sex and Class 1 substances before shifting into a sentimental narrative about maturation, The New York Times reported.
Not all critics viewed the stylistic choices favorably. The Boston Globe said that some scenes are visually headache-inducing with poor lighting, odd framing, and strobe effects.
The film pairs an adorable moppet with an unlikely guardian, a formula that The New Yorker noted is among the hoariest of movie frameworks.
The Boston Globe reported that the screenplay is nonchalant about Arlo’s abuse by his mother’s ex-boyfriend and her subsequent suicide from drug use before plunging into heartstring-tugging courtroom scenes in the final act. By contrast, The New Yorker found that Firstman keeps audiences on his side by making Peter likable in his shock over what Arlo means to him.
Club Kid is rolling out in theaters across Canada, opening in Toronto on November 13, Vancouver on November 20, and expanding nationally on November 27, according to The Globe and Mail.
Reggie Absolom stars as 10-year-old Arlo, with Saturn Risin9 appearing as trans DJ Saffron, alongside Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva, Nigil Whyte, and Colleen Camp, as reported by The Boston Globe and npr.org.
The film runs for 122 minutes, according to The Boston Globe.
Worth a look