The father-son comedy-drama that took this year’s Cannes Film Festival by storm through pure word-of-mouth has finally received a trailer – and it looks set to be one you’ll be hearing about through to next year’s awards season. Club Kid revolves around a gay, irresponsible and hard-partying New Yorker named Peter who suddenly discovers he has a 10-year-old son, the product of a silly, drunken fling with a British woman he barely knew a decade earlier. Tragically, the woman in question has since died – leaving Peter the only person able to look after young Arlo (played by British newcomer Reggie Absolom), who comes to live with him.
The movie is the filmmaking debut of its star, Jordan Firstman, who shot to viral fame during Covid for his series of observational and slyly surreal Instagram skits (he played banana bread’s publicist, for instance). In the years since, though, he has become a consummate comedy scene-stealer, in shows such as Rachel Sennott’s HBO comedy I Love LA, Disney/Hulu’s brilliant English Teacher and the very dirty comedy film Rotting in the Sun. Speaking to The Independent in 2023 to promote Rotting in the Sun, Firstman talked about his ambition to carve out a career that involved fewer of the two-minute internet skits and more of the kind of things that Adam Sandler likes to make, explaining: “He’s a real hero of mine, and someone’s who’s been able to skirt this line his entire career where he’s like… so family-friendly in some stuff, and then he’s in Uncut Gems and working with Paul Thomas Anderson.” Intriguingly, there’s a sliver of Sandler’s classic 1999 comedy Big Daddy to Club Kid, which seems to fit in that delicate sweet spot of the wholesome and the vaguely risqué.
It also dazzled Cannes this year, emerging as its biggest word-of-mouth hit – few went into the festival with Club Kid on their radar, but it emerged with some of the best reviews from critics in attendance, and inspired a bidding war among prospective distributors. In the end, A24 outbid its rivals to the tune of $17m to buy the film and release it worldwide. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
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