Jordan Firstman‘s first Cannes premiere began with him gleefully twerking on the red-carpeted steps of the festival’s Debussy theater, before expressing in his onstage intro how thrilled he was to be “in de bussy.” So far, so expected from the most recognizable gay comedian of his generation, who shot to fame during the COVID lockdown period with a viral run of drolly absurdist impressions and sketches, drenched in queer-coded humor and reference points. Perhaps intentionally, it proved a misleading way to introduce his winning, accomplished debut feature “Club Kid,” which certainly begins as an exhaustingly antic, coked-up rush through the highest, lowest, lewdest reaches of the New York queer club scene — before surprising its audience and protagonist alike with a drastic tonal about-face.
The instigator of the change? A doe-eyed, tousle-haired 9-year-old boy, dropped into this world of house music, casual sex and ketamine benders as if from outer space — or at least from London — to redesign the life of single, dissolute and determinedly uncommitted party promoter Peter (played, with some degree of self-deprecating irony, by Firstman himself).
From Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid” through to Mike Mills’ “C’mon C’mon” a full century later, we all know what tends to happen in the movies when manchild meets actual child — and the real surprise of “Club Kid,” a breakout crowdpleaser in this year’s Cannes Un Certain Regard program, is that Firstman is happy to follow the formula. Come for the arch, bitchy humor promised by the title and the director’s general social media brand; stay for the unabashed sweetness of the enterprise; leave with the distinct sense that there’s more to Firstman than his online persona. Distributors will be lining up outside this particular club door with wallets in hand.
Firstman has form when it comes to mocking himself on screen. He made his very amusing feature-film acting debut as “Jordan Firstman,” a vapid, obnoxious comedian and influencer, in Sébastian Silva’s witty 2023 meta-movie “Rotting in the Sun” — and while he’s progressed to writing himself an actual, differently named character in “Club Kid,” thirtysomething Brooklynite Peter Green is cut from much the same cloth, minus the wealth and celebrity. Still, Peter is famous to a certain subset of clubgoers like him, who are quick to offer a kiss, a fuck or a bump of cocaine to get in his good graces at the raucous parties he oversees with brisk business partner Sophie (Cara Delevingne).
Evoking Sean Baker in its style, a whirlwind 10-minute opening sequence — sweatily shot by Adam Newport-Berra and feverishly cut by editors Taylor Levy and Sofía Subercaseaux to a steady, heavy throb of bass — establishes this world to either seductive or nightmarish effect. Peter waltzes through an indistinguishable parade of such parties, high as a kite on some drug or another, at one point getting pulled into a panting threesome with another guy and handsy British tourist Leonora (Paris Petitjean). When he finally trudges home to his improbably spacious (but, it turns out, inherited and rent-controlled) apartment, looking like something the cat coughed up, his kindly downstairs neighbor Evelyn (Colleen Camp) voices her concern. “You ever just lose 10 years?” he sighs in response.
In what turn out to be the film’s cleverest formal gambit, it turns out he really has. That head-pounding introductory montage spanned a full decade, something we only realize when 9-year-old Arlo (charismatic tyke Reggie Absolom, recently seen in TV’s “The Other Bennet Sister”) is deposited on his doorstep by feckless party monster Edison (a very funny Kirby Howell-Baptiste) — who curtly explains that Arlo, who has until now lived in London, is the child he fathered with Leonora on that one intoxicated tryst. Furthermore, Leonora has recently died by suicide, leaving Peter as the boy’s new guardian. This would be a lot to take in for anyone, let alone someone who swears he’s never been with a woman, and whose spiraling addictions have recently cost him his job. Arlo might be better off in Peter’s care than on the streets, but only just.
Still, when Edison beats a hasty retreat back to London, Peter is left with little choice but to look after the kid — who at least turns out to be a pretty easy hang, sharing his newfound dad’s love for the Cocteau Twins and Björk, and not acting too fussy about what he eats, despite a lactose intolerance that prompts one genuinely inspired gross-out gag. Indeed, Arlo’s straightforward adorability — he hardly ever acts up or acts out, and his grief is mostly internalized — is a weak point in Firstman’s script, which may know its protagonist inside and out, but shows scant insight regarding children.
That lack of dimensionality, often deftly covered by Absolom’s mature, appealing performance, perhaps makes it easier than it should be for Peter to step up to the plate. As the two bond in short order, our previously flailing hero shapes up very quickly indeed, soon shedding his substance abuse problems and entering a healthy relationship with dreamy social worker Oscar (Diego Calva). That leaves the film’s particularly baggy second act — enjoyable as “Club Kid” is, there’s no reason for it to run past two hours — with a bit of a tension deficit, at least until the long arm of the law reaches across the Atlantic to complicate things again. Firstman’s screenplay brims with sharp, salty dialogue and a welcome particularity of place and community, but he’s not yet as sophisticated a dramatist as he is a comedian.
None of these fairly typical first-film shortcomings, however, comes at much cost to the film’s relaxed, unexpectedly earnest charm. While Firstman flirts with outright Hollywood sentimentality as father and son swiftly learn to see themselves in each other, a more emotionally guarded, nuanced finale keeps one foot planted in the real world — a colder, less stimulating place for the new Peter as his 20-year buzz gradually wears off. Firstman is a filmmaker who isn’t afraid to state his influences and aspirations in bold print: On a date with Oscar, for example, Peter sings the praise of Gregg Araki’s gay touchstone “Mysterious Skin” at some length. “Club Kid” has more than enough promise to suggest a next-generation queer filmmaker might someday list him in the same breath.
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