A Frontmezzjunkies TIFF film review: Jordan Firstman Turns Queer NYC Nightlife Into a Tender, Chaotic Story of Unexpected Fatherhood
By Ross
I have to admit, watching “Club Kid” sent me somewhere I wasn’t expecting. It rolled in as the most rambunctious Uber ride imaginable, with muscles, tattoos, drugs, and gender-fluid bodies taking over the backseat as we hurtle through the queer New York club scene. “Are you having fun at my party?” floats out of the chaos, while Peter is all business, asking for “more drugs please” with the same casual energy. I found myself watching this madness and marvelousness and thinking, “Ahhh, the good ol’ days,” remembering a time when I was young enough to have the impulse to be part of it all. Jordan Firstman drops us directly into that world without judging it or cleaning it up, and the effect is exhilarating. The authenticity of those early club scenes is palpable, particularly knowing that the production reached out through Grindr and invited real party people to show up for an all-night party shoot. That initiative allows the film to capture something that feels lived and danced in rather than manufactured. For a few glorious minutes, I was right there in the middle of it, feeling the pulse of a nightlife that could be beautiful, filthy, communal, excessive, and completely alive.
That opening energy matters because Firstman, who writes, directs, and stars as Peter, never turns the party scene into a morality lesson. The community has its problems, that is crystal clear, and the film lets us see it all, but there is also a currency of genuine affection for the people who have built their lives inside this world. About a decade later, Peter is still stumbling through the life that once seemed like fun, though the energy has begun to fade. His phone keeps blowing up, much like his business relationship with his former partner Sophie, played by Cara Delevingne, but the screen seems to be used more often for arranging another line than answering an actual call. Peter is still living inside the rhythm and grind of the nightlife, even as that move has begun to cost him something emotionally. Firstman allows that transition to happen gradually, without suddenly turning Peter into a different person simply because the story requires him. The party is still there. Peter is still there. The question is whether he can learn to show up for something else.
That something arrives in the form of Arlo, the ten-year-old son Peter never knew he had. When Arlo’s mother dies, the boy is dropped into Peter’s chaotic life in the most chaotic but clever way, and the collision is almost impossibly awkward at first. “You’re going to be a brilliant Dad” is the kind of sentence Peter could never have imagined hearing, because Peter has spent so much of his life thinking of himself as a basic gay guy, damaged goods, someone who belongs to the night and has very little to offer beyond it. And when the connection does land, it is more than just a Hallmark card platitude. Arlo initially feels like another disruption, another responsibility being dropped into his lap, yet their relationship develops with a tenderness that never feels forced. Reggie Absalom is wonderful as Arlo, bringing a natural humour and intelligence to the role while allowing the boy’s awkwardness to remain completely believable. His DJ mixing becomes a way into Peter’s world, and Peter begins to discover that caring for someone can actually be exhilarating. “She ain’t coming back” is a brutal recognition for Peter, but the realization that this child is his creates something entirely new for Peter, and we feel that discomfort as Peter works to engage with his newly found son. He begins to see Arlo, and through Arlo, he begins to see himself.
Firstman beautifully allows Peter’s transformation to happen through small acts of connection rather than a sudden Hollywood conversion. Peter doesn’t wake up one morning as the perfect father. He screws up, he remains chaotic, he carries all of the habits that have shaped his life, and yet something inside him begins to move. The film’s humour helps enormously here, because Peter can be ridiculous even when the emotional stakes are enormous. Firstman’s screenplay has a sharp comic instinct, an appetite for gross-out humour, and a willingness to let awkwardness sit in the room until it becomes funny. Then, when the emotional weight arrives, he trusts the characters enough to let it hurt. I found myself holding my breath alongside Peter because the feelings didn’t seem to be manufactured for a cathartic moment. They came from the growing realization that this man who thought he had already figured himself out has discovered an entirely different emotional capacity for love.
Adam Newport-Berra’s grainy 35mm cinematography is an essential and magical part of that journey because the film looks as though it has been pulled directly out of the world it is depicting. The nightlife has an unruly, tactile energy, while the later scenes have the intimacy needed to stay close to Peter and Arlo as their relationship changes. The camera engages with the wild and erratic energy of the club world, but it also understands the quiet spaces where Peter is forced to look at himself. That visual texture helps Firstman’s direction maintain affection for his community even while acknowledging the damage that Peter’s lifestyle has caused him and those around him.
Diego Calva brings a lovely depth to his role as both Arlo’s social worker and Peter’s eventual romantic partner, allowing their relationship to develop with the kind of patience and care that Peter has rarely shown elsewhere in his life. He maintains the professional boundaries between them until the moment those boundaries no longer define what they have become to each other. And when the intimacy finally opens up, there is something genuinely moving about the way they both step into it. This is a relationship that might never have happened had Arlo not entered Peter’s life, and it gives Peter the possibility of an adult connection that can hold both his affection and his unruly nature. Similarly, the people around Peter do not disappear simply because fatherhood enters his life. They become part of the messy, unconventional community that has to figure out how Arlo fits into their world too.
“You did a good job” becomes a surprisingly powerful idea in “Club Kid” because it feels directed at Peter, at Arlo, and perhaps even at Firstman himself for having the insight and understanding to make something this messy and caring. The whole thing might sound familiar on paper, but Firstman finds something genuinely engaging inside his “Club Kid” because he never asks Peter to abandon the person he was in order to become the person he needs to be. The wildness of the opening party scenes remains part of the film’s emotional DNA, and that is important to me. I didn’t walk away wishing Peter had become somebody else. I walked away wanting him to understand that there was more of himself available to him than he had ever imagined. For a film that begins with bodies pressed together in the back of a car, drugs changing hands, and a question about whether everyone is having fun at the party, “Club Kid” eventually arrives somewhere much more fascinating. It gives us a man who slowly realizes that somebody is depending on him to show up, and then discovers that being there might actually be the best party he has ever been invited to.
