‘Club Kid’ is a Perfectly Messy Representation of a Delayed Coming of Age [REVIEW]

It’s Easy to Lose Yourself in the Mundanities of Life

Sometimes there are films that make you sit back and think: about life, not just your own, but all of the lives you could have lived. Club Kid is that film. Writer/director Jordan Firstman smashes his way onto the screen with his directorial debut that’s about how to navigate the messy unpredictability of life, especially when you hate yourself.

Peter (Firstman) is a party promoter who lives a life of drugs, booze, and all-nighters. The beginning of the story takes us back to 2016, a “decade or so” before the events of the film. However, we can see that in that time, Peter hasn’t changed. He still keeps the same hours, the same party friends, the same cocktail of drugs and alcohol. In a way, Peter is a wheel stuck in the mud of his youth, unable to work himself free from the ruts he’s created around himself.

All of that changes when he meets the consequences of that 2016 night out, one that h hardly even remembers. Edison (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) marches back into his life toting along Arlo (Reggie Absolom), Peter’s ten-year-old biological son. After she absconds back to the UK, leaving Peter stuck with Arlo, he has no choice but to confront a reality he had never expected to be in.

It’s Difficult to Escape Responsibilities, Especially When You Have No Choice

The New York that Firstman paints is beautifully weathered, lived-in in a way that can only come from the perspective of somebody who grew up there. Likewise, the nightlife that Peter and his friends is gauzy and dizzy, suffused in a veil of drugs and hookups. It’s hedonistic and tantalizing, but also carries with it a dark undercurrent, threatening to pull you under if you aren’t careful.

One of Club Kid‘s most successful qualities is how real the relationship between Peter and Arlo feels. Arlo is the result of a drunken one night stand in 2016, and one that Peter doesn’t even remember that he slept with Arlo’s mom until Edison refreshes his memory. At first, the edges of the two push together uncomfortably rather than line up. Peter doesn’t know how to deal with kids, and Arlo is grieving his mom’s passing. The responsibility that has been thrust on him is more monumental than he had expected, and their early days are spent struggling more than a little.

However, as they begin to know each other, they both find out that they have a lot more in common than just blood. With his late mother being a clubber like Peter, she has instilled in him an appreciation for music and the nightlife culture, which eases the way for how they eventually come to bond. Arlo’s innocence
— highlighted especially in the scene where he’s wearing Peter’s “I Love Björk and Barebacking” shirt because he also loves Björk
— eventually helps Peter reconcile with the parts of himself that he hates. The result is a much better coping mechanism where he uses music and clubbing as means of enjoyment rather than just escape.

The Community is an Important Character in the Film

Brooklyn DJ and performer Saturn Risin9 plays Saffron, Peter’s deck queen who takes Arlo under her tutelage after discovering that he has a knack for DJing. Eldar Isgandarov plays Nicky, who is living with Peter “temporarily” when the film begins, plans on being a philosopher, albeit an unconventional one. In fact, we could all benefit from taking a leaf out of his book and living life as he sees it.

The film oscillates between the whiplash of clubbing, that claustrophobic feeling of being surrounded on all sides among clubbers strung out and unaware of their surroundings, and the sheer, aching loneliness that it’s used to cloak. Peter throws these parties, sells drugs to people who he can’t ever truly call his friends, because the other option is being left alone with the self-loathing he can’t seem to shake.

However, this is only one side of the community that Firstman showcases in the film. Devon (Nigil Whyte) shows up as the only other rational voice at Peter’s parties, and as Peter begins his journey into fatherhood and semi-sobriety Devon becomes a larger part of Peter’s stable life. He starts to untangle the messier parts of himself as the film goes along, each moment more raw than the first as Firstman confronts ideas of self-worth and trauma.

Club Kid is about growing up, confronting the responsibilities of life, and confronting parts of yourself you’ve numbed for years. But on the other hand, it is a beautiful story about connection, love, and realizing that you don’t have to be stuck in a toxic cycle of your own making. Like working at a DJ deck, there are different rhythms and beats, and Firstman tells us that we are the ones in control, even if we don’t always feel like it.