By Jason Osiason
Jordan Firstman goes nakedly sincere in Club Kid and gets away with it. That’s a difficult thing for a comedian to attempt, especially in a film he’s written, directed and cast himself in. He plays Peter, a New York party promoter whose whole personality depends on being the reason the night is happening. Then a ten-year-old son he didn’t know about gets handed to him like a coat he has to check. Peter loves the kid, but he also loves being needed, and I appreciated how much the film lets those feelings complicate his attempts to grow up.
The opening is wonderfully inventive. I won’t spoil it, but within minutes Firstman has put you inside a very specific New York world and made you comfortable finding your way around. There’s some uneven writing, as you might expect from a first feature, but the affection for these people comes through so clearly that I was happy to follow him. He knows what’s funny about this scene, including the things that would look ridiculous to somebody outside it. He also understands why people keep coming back. Peter can behave badly without the film turning his entire life into something he needs to be cured of.
Seeing it with a New York crowd was a particular pleasure. The references landed immediately, and I’m fairly sure I was the only person in the theater who clocked the little tribute early on that forever memorializes Chinatown’s most beloved watermelon slush. I’m still not over it. Details like that make the city feel familiar without the film having to announce how well it knows the place.
Reggie Absolom’s Arlo holds his own in a movie full of adults competing for attention. How comfortable he and Firstman become together is nothing short of genuine movie magic. Their relationship gave me a reason to care about Peter getting his life together beyond simply wanting the funny lead to succeed. I wanted him to manage it for this particular kid. The second time around, I found myself more invested in their scenes together, even knowing where things were going.
My main reservation is Diego Calva’s Oscar. Calva is good, but the romance feels slightly forced, and I never became as interested in it as I was in Peter’s relationship with Arlo. Oscar’s work as a social worker also feels like an opportunity the film could have used more fully. With custody becoming an issue, I wanted his professional perspective to matter more to the story. That might have helped the romance feel more connected to everything else Peter was going through. As it stands, Oscar is the character I most wanted Firstman to spend another pass on.
That bothered me less on a second viewing because the rest of the film moved me more. I went from liking Club Kid to fully loving it. Firstman has made an enormously affectionate debut without losing the humor that makes spending time with him fun in the first place, and it does Alex Coco and the Anora crowd proud. A24 releases it November 6. Go with people who’ll get the references, and if you don’t have those people, go anyway and let the movie introduce you. [B+]
