Jordan Firstman's 'Club Kid' Wins Cannes: A Director Debuts on November 6

Jordan Firstman's directorial debut Club Kid premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard sidebar and opens in theaters on November 6. The review that follows, originally published as part of 2026 Cannes coverage by The Film Stage, names the film a Critics' Pick.

The film's promotional materials suggested a New York downtown answer to Mia Hansen-Løve's Eden. The reviewer counters that Club Kid is equally a fresh reimagining of the stunted-father subgenre running from Kramer vs Kramer and Marriage Story to Adam Sandler's Big Daddy. The movie delivers copious drug-taking and gross-out comedy, but its third-act emotional payoff is, in the critic's words, "as earned and devastating as the best of them."

What makes the debut feel assured?

Un Certain Regard has often served as a testing ground for movie stars directing for the first time. Firstman, previously known for Rotting in the Sun and I Love LA, reads less like a dilettante than a natural behind the camera.

The opening sequence makes the case. Cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra — who shot The Studio and The Last Black Man in San Francisco — delivers a fluid, immersive single take that moves from the front seat of an Uber onto the dancefloor of Club Labor, where Peter Green (Firstman) and his entourage receive a welcome compared to Henry Hill at the Copacabana. The scene is set in 2016. The film then jumps to the present day, a structural choice the review flags as the first sign of its larger ambitions.

How does the father-son story unfold?

A few scenes later, Arlo (Reggie Absolom) arrives: a ten-year-old Londoner conceived during a drug-fuelled encounter between Peter and an English tourist on that 2016 night. The film shifts from an aging-party-boy story to an underqualified man confronting fatherhood for the first time.

The reviewer notes the subgenre familiarity but singles out what no comparable film contains: a father-son duet on piano singing Ethel Cain, the observation that fisting can be "lowkey spiritual," and the warning that mixing G with alcohol is rarely advisable.

The soundtrack features Arthur Russell and Elliott Smith. After Arlo's arrival and Peter's decision to clean up, the film never moralizes against the life being left behind. When Peter tells his coked-up business partner Sophie (Cara Delevingne) that he deals drugs at the club partly to keep the community safe, the review finds "more than an ounce of truth" in the line — even as genre logic guarantees those choices will bite him.

Who joins the cast, and how does New York look?

The supporting cast includes:

• Diego Calva (Babylon) as a love interest
• Colleen Camp as an eccentric neighbor
• Cameos from the downtown scene, including Nick Pinkerton

Shot on real streets and choice locations — lunch at Balthazar, a walk by the East River, the skyline at night from a car window — the film ranks, per the reviewer, among the best New York movies of this scale since Past Lives.

Criticisms are minor: Delevingne "can chew scenery a bit much for comfort," and Arlo's DJ subplot — which Peter himself calls "lowkey corny" — could have been cut.

The verdict: Club Kid "looks every inch the work of a mature, gifted filmmaker with plenty to say and the guts to lay it all out." The November 6 theatrical release will test whether Cannes enthusiasm travels beyond the Croisette.