Club Kid Film Review: I Got You, Kid

Jordan’s Firstman’s Club Kid reinvents and reinvigorates what a coming-of-age film can look like, mixing hearty humor with a profound interest in self-discovery.

In fact, most young adults find themselves falling, flailing and failing time and time again before they even begin to understand what matters most to them. With his debut feature film, Club Kid, Jordan Firstman reinvigorates the coming-of-age genre with a refreshing honesty and deep understanding of the pain that comes from figuring out who you are while at an age where you are told you’re supposed to already know who you’re meant to be. 

Club Kid opens in 2016 New York City. The city is brimming with young people in skinny jeans, bomber jackets and snapback hats and every moment is being immortalized on Instagram with ironic hashtags. On a busy night out, we meet Peter (Firstman), a gay club/party promoter who seems to be at the epicenter of NYC’s nightlife scene. Not only does Peter run the parties at the hot and happening Club Labor, he and his friends arguably party the hardest there. 

This fateful night, Leonora (Paris Petitjean) and Edison (Kirby Howell-Baptiste, of Sugar), two British girls on vacation in New York, infiltrate Peter’s social scene, much to his chagrin. As the night goes on and the drugs and drinks continue to flow, Peter finds himself in a threesome with Leonora and a male admirer. As Peter ends his night as one of the last people on the dance floor, one thing is clear: he hopes that life can stay this fun forever.

Cut to the present day, and while his life has not changed, his ability to enjoy it as fruitfully has. He still works as a club and party promoter for Club Labor with his business partner Sophie (Cara Delevingne, of Only Murders in the Building), but Peter is now the only part of the duo attending the parties every night. While he begs Sophie to step in some of the time, she’s moved on from needing to be in the scene every night and wants to legitimize the business they have spent the last ten years building. Peter, on the other hand, has his identity too steeped in the gay nightlife scene to pull himself out of it now, no matter how much partying every single night has lost its appeal.

When Peter’s incessant partying and heavy drug use crosses a major line for Sophie and his working relationship, he’s left with the shell of the very hollow life he has built for himself. This is until Edison arrives at his front door with a ten-year-old boy in tow. While Peter had no contact with Leonora or Edison after that night ten years ago, the girls kept track of him, as it turns out he fathered Leonora’s son Arlo (Reggie Absolom, of Silo). 

After Leonora took her own life, Edison promised to take Arlo to be with his father. Peter, completely in shock, tells Edison he cannot be a father to Arlo, but eventually and reluctantly becomes his caretaker. While they get off to a rocky start, Arlo and Peter, both feeling incredibly alone in their own ways, begin to find solace in one another and develop a bond that seemingly heals them both. 

While we meet Arlo at the most transformative time in his life, he has the wisdom and cool disposition of someone twice Peter’s age. It’s only through Peter having to care for someone other than himself that he is able to look at the parts of his life that have made him so deeply unhappy and decide to change for the sake of this young person he knows he has to become better for. 

Club Kid is brimming with life. Firstman’s script materializes the almost invincible feeling you get when you never want a party to end and perfectly encapsulates the sadness in the realization you are the last one standing as the lights come on. He paints the poetic tragedy of being in a room where everyone knows your name yet feeling like nobody actually sees you. It packs an ethos that can only be derived from lived experiences to relay a universal feeling of restlessness in one’s identity that is palpable to audiences of all walks of life. 

The characters Firstman has created serve as a beautiful and potent portal into New York City’s queer community and the power of the connection that lies within it. For as much as Peter changes for Arlo’s benefit, the support of his friends encourages him to legitimize himself in a way they always knew he could do before, but never had the determination to follow through due to his troubled relationship with his own self-image. 

Adam Newport-Berra’s lively cinematography breathes life into New York City’s infamous club scene while also transforming the setting into a character that cannot be ignored in the evolution of Peter as a person. Newport-Berra expertly balances showing how Peter is jaded in his view of New York from his ten-plus years in the city while also painting it as brand new in the eyes of young Arlo. As much as Peter is changing for Arlo, it’s through Arlo’s view of Peter’s life that Peter begins to acknowledge and appreciate all the good that surrounds him. 

With Club Kid, Jordan Firstman creates a world that you want to hang out in longer than the runtime of the film and characters that stay with you long after you exit the theater. It’s both nostalgic and forward-thinking, hopeful and devastating and as full of regret as it is of light. It’s a love letter to the moments where you realize you’re worthy of the care you pour into others and you’re more than the moments you convinced yourself would forever define you. The film so elegantly shows the nuanced relationships we have with ourselves and how our own perception of our identities can both lift us up or hold us down if we choose to let it. 

Club Kid will have its New York Premiere at the New York Film Festival on October 2-12, 2026. In the U.K., it will be screened at the BFI London Film Festival on October 17.