Club Kid

In Charlotte Regan’s delightful coming-of-age film Scrapper, an unprepared dad returns to London to connect with his tweenage daughter. This equally lovely, if tougher-edged coming-of-fatherhood drama from New York comedian-turned-filmmaker Jordan Firstman tells a similar tale with the same effervescent energy. It also offers a trip into New York’s hedonist nightlife scene with a cast of larger-than-life scenesters. All the fun of a big night out, no hangover. 

Like Regan’s film, Club Kid has the cool breath of freshness on its side, with remarkable young acting performances and a writer-director-star who nails all three aspects of this funny, heady and tender film. 

Young Brit Reggie Absolom gives a debut performance of miraculous naturalism. He plays the loveable Arlo, a clued-up 10-year-old Londoner whose mother has recently died. He’s left at club promoter Peter’s (Firstman) Manhattan apartment by his mum’s old friend (Barry’s Kirby Howell-Baptiste). They’ve never met but the queer thirtysomething Peter is his biological dad, thanks to a drugged-up nightclub tryst ‘a decade or so’ ago (hazy memories are a Club Kid motif). 

Firstman’s script gives us that 2016 prelude in full with Arlo’s mum-to-be dropping so much London slang, Peter and his clubbing coterie quickly nickname her ‘Innit Babe!’. The club scenes are immersively staged in hip spots like Bushwick’s Market Hotel (‘Club Labor’ here) and at nomadic rave night Pit//Stop, cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra’s camera ushering us through the sweaty crowds. The nocturnal world of Club Kid feels lived-in and real, with raucous pre-drinks and dance-floor euphoria slowly curdling into something heavier and more oppressive for Peter, much in the spirit of Mia Hansen-Løve’s brilliant dance music odyssey Eden. Cara Delevingne’s Sophie, his ambitious but increasingly coked-up business partner, is a walking cautionary tale.

Young Brit Reggie Absolom gives a performance of miraculous naturalism

But it’s in Peter’s slowly blooming relationship with Arlo that Club Kid’s heart lies. The pair bond during outings in Lower Manhattan; Arlo’s sophisticated taste in music suggesting that, despite their differences, he’s a chip off the old block after all. The title, of course, applies as much to Peter as Arlo. Firstman’s hugely likeable performance paints Peter as boyish, popular and generous, but avoidant and chaotic too. He knows that embracing fatherhood is his chance to grow up, but he’s also aware that his nascent relationship with Arlo can’t sustain that sort of existential pressure.

It’s a film that holds those two impulses – hedonism and responsibility – in its hands with grace and intelligence. If some emotional beats feel brushed past, like Arlo’s anger issues and trauma (and Diego Calva’s role as a therapist-turned-love interest is blurry,) the payoff is a beauty. When Peter crumbles as he reads Arlo a bedtime story, it will break your heart. 

In US theaters now. In UK and Ireland cinemas Jan 8, 2027.