Film: ‘Club Kid’: NY party scene drama emerges as Oscars outsider

After thrilling the international festival circuit, US indie sensation Club Kid set in the queer New York party scene will hit Taiwan cinemas in December ahead of what many critics see as a tilt at the Oscars.

The debut film from Jordan Firstman became one of the buzziest titles at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in May, leading to a bidding war among distributors that was won by US independent film giant A24.

It has since won awards at festivals, with expectations steadily built by a string of rave reviews that have handed the movie a rare 100-percent rating on aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.

Miss Benny, left, and Jordan Firstman in a scene from Club Kid.

Photo: A24 via AP

Firstman, 35, said in an interview ahead of the film’s international release from Wednesday that he had used his own personal experience of New York’s underground gay club scene for the movie that he also wrote and acts in. “I know it deep in my bones, and I know the beauty of it, and I know the complications of it, and I know the pain of it, and so I wanted that all to just be shown,” he said in Paris.

The film chronicles the life of a gay New Yorker in his thirties, a queer drug-loving party promoter who suddenly discovers he is the father of a 10-year-old child.

It offers viewers an immersion into the underground LGBTQ party scene where everyone speaks the same coded language: “K” for ketamine, “C” for cocaine, “G” for GHB, “3” for 3-MMC.

From left, Alaska Riley, Saturn Risin9 and Miss Benny in a scene fromClub Kid.

Photo: A24 via AP

Some scenes in the film are shot in real underground parties. But while it could easily have gotten lost in a plea for same-sex parenting or in re-telling a story about addiction, Firstman instead focuses on the universal by telling the gentle yet chaotic story of learning how to be a parent.

“It’s a love story between a father and a son. It’s a love story about community. It’s a family love story about chosen family,” he explained. His aim was to produce a queer re-telling of family-based classics such as The Kid by Charlie Chaplin or Academy Award Best Picture winner Kramer vs Kramer by Robert Benton.

With a host of industry magazines and critics tipping the movie as a possible Oscars contender, Firstman says his hard-partying past is behind him as he deals with the bright glare of publicity.

Jordan Firstman in a scene from Club Kid.

Photo: A24 via AP

“I can’t afford on a Monday to be hungover,” he joked. Before making Club Kid, which features model Cara Delevingne as a cocaine-addled party organizer, he was best known for short queer comedy clips on Instagram. While writing his first feature, he said he also wanted to explore the difficult journey to self-respect and love that many LGBTQ people have to take.

“If you grow up gay, people bully you or your family doesn’t accept it. I think a lot of people have this, and I think it doesn’t really get better unless you really, really work on it,” he said.

Although he said he had “struggles with self-esteem,” he was supremely confident in his abilities as a writer and director. “I almost had an inflated sense of self when it came to my work. When people didn’t want to make my movies or make my TV shows, I was like, ‘they’re the idiots, I’m right’,” he explained.

Saturn Risin9, left, and Reggie Absolom in a scene from Club Kid.

Photo: A24 via AP

“Club Kid” takes place in 2016 — a year that Firstman now looks back on with nostalgia.

“There was just something that felt really fun and cool (in that year),” he said.

“Right after, Trump got elected in America, it has never for a day gotten better. The second we got rid of Trump, we got a pandemic. The second the pandemic ended, we got Trump again.