Even if Jordan Firstman has never particularly been someone you’ve vibed with, Club Kid may completely rearrange your perception of him.
Serving as writer, director and star of his feature filmmaking debut, Firstman initially seems determined to test that theory. His Peter Green is a New York club promoter whose existence is fuelled by late nights, drugs, questionable decisions and a social circle that can prove deliberately exhausting. There’s an abrasiveness to the film’s opening stretch that almost feels confrontational, as if Club Kid knows exactly what some audiences expect from Firstman and is happy to play into it.
Then a 10-year-old boy turns up at Peter’s door.
That would be Arlo (Reggie Absolom), the son Peter had absolutely no idea existed, conceived during his one sexual encounter with a woman a decade earlier. Following the death of Arlo’s mother, Peter – gay, perpetually hungover and barely capable of maintaining his own increasingly joyless lifestyle – suddenly finds himself responsible for a child.
Yes, we’ve been here before.
The irresponsible man unexpectedly saddled with a kid who forces him to grow up is practically its own cinematic genre. And there are certainly shades of Big Daddy in Club Kid, albeit refashioned for a considerably queerer and more progressive generation. But familiarity ultimately matters very little when Firstman approaches the material with this much specificity, affection and, most surprisingly, sincerity.
What could have been a one-joke collision between an innocent child and New York’s queer nightlife instead becomes something far more interesting. Arlo isn’t brought into Peter’s world so the film can suddenly condemn it, nor is Peter’s journey towards fatherhood treated as an admission that his previous life was inherently wrong. His community of DJs, club kids, trans friends, gays and assorted downtown personalities doesn’t disappear once he starts behaving more responsibly. Instead, they become part of the unconventional family forming around Arlo.
It’s an important distinction, and one that prevents Club Kid from becoming strangely conservative underneath its progressive exterior. Peter needs to change because he is unhappy and self-destructive, not because queer nightlife is something he’s expected to graduate from in order to become a respectable parent.
Firstman finds tremendous humour in putting these two worlds together, but some of the film’s sweetest moments are surprisingly understated. Arlo has inherited an impressive musical vocabulary from his mother, allowing music to become an organic bridge between father and son. A sequence involving the two at a piano is particularly lovely, precisely because Club Kid doesn’t strain to announce its emotional significance. They simply start finding a language they share.
The relationship works enormously because Absolom is never directed like an adorable prop designed to rehabilitate Peter. Arlo is observant, funny and carrying grief that doesn’t conveniently disappear because his previously absent father happens to be entertaining. Firstman and Absolom establish a beautifully natural rhythm together, and the film is at its strongest when it simply allows them to talk.
Firstman, especially, is something of a revelation.
Peter’s larger personality obviously plays into the performer’s established comic strengths, but there’s an increasing stillness to his work as the film progresses. As the parties quieten and Peter begins considering what another person actually needs from him, Firstman gradually strips away the performative armour of the character. The change never requires Peter to become an entirely different person; he just starts becoming more present in his own life.
And when Club Kid eventually asks Firstman to go somewhere emotionally raw, he proves more than capable.
A late-film sequence involving Peter receiving a phone call and subsequently breaking down is devastatingly effective. Firstman doesn’t overplay it, nor does the film manufacture some enormous monologue to underline what we’re supposed to feel. It’s the type of moment that lands all the harder because the obnoxious club promoter we met at the beginning hardly seemed capable of letting us this far inside.
That tonal progression is arguably Firstman’s greatest accomplishment as a filmmaker. Club Kid starts as a prickly nightlife comedy, gradually morphs into an unconventional father-son story and ultimately reveals itself as something considerably more tender without ever feeling as if one movie has been swapped for another.
There’s a looseness to the dialogue, too, that gives the characters the impression of actually listening to each other. Jokes don’t always arrive with obvious punchlines, conversations change direction unexpectedly, and humour frequently exists alongside sadness rather than being used to interrupt it. Even a bedtime conversation can move from a ridiculous pop-cultural observation into an acknowledgement of death without the transition feeling artificially engineered.
Firstman’s affection for New York is equally palpable. Alongside cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra, he captures both the sensory overload of Peter’s nocturnal existence and the quieter city that emerges once he starts experiencing daylight again. The nightlife sequences have an appropriately sweaty immediacy, but Club Kid is just as interested in apartments, sidewalks, restaurants and those seemingly insignificant spaces where relationships actually develop.
The supporting ensemble adds further texture. Cara Delevingne brings a brittle, chaotic energy to Peter’s business partner Sophie, whilst Diego Calva is effortlessly charming as Oscar, the social worker who develops an attraction to Peter. Their relationship adds another welcome dimension to the film’s refusal to suggest parenthood requires Peter to neuter his sexuality. Colleen Camp, meanwhile, knows precisely how much eccentricity to bring to Peter’s neighbour Evelyn without overwhelming the film around her.
Not everything works quite as smoothly. Some of Peter’s friends initially feel more like aggressively curated personalities than fully formed characters, and the opening stretch risks confirming the suspicions of anyone already allergic to Firstman’s particular comedic wavelength. There are also later developments that lean noticeably harder on the familiar mechanics of the unexpected-parenthood formula.
But Club Kid earns the sentiment those conventions are designed to produce.
There’s something genuinely moving about watching a film that doesn’t treat queer adulthood and parenthood as opposing identities. Peter doesn’t become worthy of Arlo by abandoning who he is. He becomes worthy by finally recognising that loving somebody requires showing up for them.
That may not be a revolutionary dramatic concept, but the world Firstman builds around it feels wonderfully specific.
For a film that opens with enough drugs, clubbing and intentionally grating personalities to suggest an endurance test may be ahead, Club Kid proves remarkably generous. Firstman hasn’t reinvented the accidental-father comedy so much as found a version of it that feels distinctly his own, taking something comfortingly familiar and filling it with people who historically haven’t been afforded the opportunity to occupy such familiar stories.
Funny, messy and ultimately disarming, Club Kid sneaks its heart up on you. By the time Peter finally cracks, it’s remarkable to realise just how deeply Firstman has made us care.
THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Club Kid is screening as part of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, running between September 10th and 20th, 2026. For more information, head to the official site here.
