Club Kid stretches the “unlikely parental figure” subgenre (think Baby Boom or About a Boy) to its likely limit. The film centers on Peter, a hedonistic promoter of sex-and-drug pop-up parties who is suddenly saddled with the 10-year-old son he unwittingly fathered 10 years earlier. This jarring juxtaposition is played for both shock and laughs in ways that occasionally feel calculated (there’s a cringiness to the scene in which the kid DJs at one of the parties). Yet despite the seemingly irreconcilable disconnect between the movie’s setting and its feel-good formula, first-time feature filmmaker Jordan Firstman, who also stars as Peter, manages to conjure plenty of affective moments. As a performer, he has an easy, witty presence, especially alongside newcomer Reggie Absolom as his son. In its final third, Club Kid deftly threads the needle between the difficult realities of someone like Peter fully committing to parenthood and the film’s desire for a happy ending. Ultimately, this is closer on the unlikely parental figure scale to Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon, with Joaquin Phoenix unexpectedly asked to play dad to his young nephew, than it is to the Ted Danson-Tom Selleck-Steve Guttenberg farce Three Men and a Baby, which is formula at its worst.
(11/11/2026)
