Club Kid is the type of film that could break your heart or mend your heart, depending on what your heart needs.

A remarkable directorial debut feature, Jordan Firstman's Club Kid is a genuinely wonderful watch. A story that begins deep in the hedonistic queer party scene in New York evolves into one about love, connection, and responsibility. Firstman, who wrote, directed, and stars in the film, plays Peter, the life of the party whose life is a party.  

We meet Peter in his heyday, at a night run by himself and lifelong friend Sophie (Cara Delevingne), and other than perhaps the cringiest drug-related “What do we want?”, “When do we want them?” chant, the vibe is very much like Peter and Sophie have made it. They’ve climbed to the top of the social hierarchy and are putting on one of the best nights of the month.Some say the party lifestyle with debauchery, drugs, and deadly comedowns is a young man’s game, but ten years after our introduction to Peter’s life, we see that it hasn’t changed all that much.This decade jump really puts into light the runaway train that a life in the party scene can become. Peter’s groggy state after having to attend his own party gave me second-hand tiredness, and there really seems to be a bleak cyclical repetitiveness to this lifestyle that has no particular endpoint. We hear Sophie saying, ‘you don’t have to get fucked up every time,’ to Peter, and his friend Devon suggesting they do something ‘chill’ together, rather than just go out and dissociate, yet Peter’s penchant for the party and the cocktail of uppers and downers that comes with it seems to be as active as ever.

But Club Kid isn’t actually about drugs and partying all that much. It’s about how Peter’s life changes when he’s suddenly hit with the ultimate responsibility: a child. A ten-year-old, to be specific, a ten-year-old from England, to be more specific.

Peter’s instant fatherhood is incredibly human, combining a certain improvisational guesswork with some very clear ignorance which oddly makes his reaction to his predicament incredibly realistic and relatable, despite it being somewhat incomprehensible.The balance between tension, heartfelt emotion, and laughter was perfectly configured, which is a testament to the writing. Club Kid received more actual in-cinema laughs than I’d heard in a long time. Peter’s friend Nicky (played by Eldar Isgandarov) is stroppy, hilarious, and steals every scene he appears in. Peter’s left-field parenting style is endearing but at the same time nerve-wracking, and I found myself almost expecting something to go terribly wrong.

Club Kid is the type of film that could break your heart or mend your heart, depending on what your heart needs – it’s hard to tell if it’s a story about a man saving a boy from a rough situation, or a boy saving a man from a rough situation, but it’s probably both. Jordan Firstman has created a delicate and beautiful film; utterly engaging throughout, raucously funny, and with moments of raw, honest emotion that may just make you well up.  

You can see Club Kid in UK cinemas on January 8 2027.