Jordan Firstman is in Cannes with the kind of cultural reputation that almost invites skepticism. The 34-year-old American performer first became known through aggressively online comedy, viral provocations and a distinctly millennial form of queer performance art that often seemed designed to irritate as much as entertain. Yet with “CLUB KID,” presented in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, Firstman reveals an entirely different side of himself: vulnerable, emotionally perceptive and sincere.

The result is one of the festival’s most disarming discoveries.

Written, directed by and starring Firstman in his feature filmmaking debut, “CLUB KID” follows Peter, a once-successful underground gay party (also known as circuit) promoter spiraling through a haze of drugs, bad decisions and fading relevance. Peter’s nightlife persona has become less glamorous than exhausting, and his life appears stuck in a cycle of self-destruction and arrested adolescence. Then everything abruptly changes when he learns that a woman he slept with years earlier, the only woman he has ever been with, has died by suicide, leaving behind an eight-year-old son he didn’t know existed.

That son, Arlo, quietly transforms the film.

Played with remarkable naturalism by newcomer Reggie Absolom, Arlo is neither a precocious movie-child cliché nor a sentimental plot device. He is a gentle, observant kid who loves music and slowly forces Peter to confront the emotional emptiness beneath his performative lifestyle. What initially looks like a chaotic comedy gradually evolves into something emotionally resonant: a story about self-worth, reinvention and learning how to care for another person when you barely know how to care for yourself.

Firstman’s greatest surprise as a filmmaker lies in his tonal balance. “CLUB KID” is undeniably funny, filled with hyper-specific contemporary queer humor references, chaotic party scenes and razor-sharp dialogue rooted in an online generation. Yet beneath the jokes sits genuine melancholy. The film understands the loneliness that can hide beneath performative coolness, especially within nightlife cultures built around perpetual youth and reinvention.

Rather than mocking queer party culture from the outside, Firstman approaches it with affection and lived-in familiarity. The clubs, apartments and afterparties feel authentic rather than stylized for straight audiences. Even Peter’s worst impulses are treated less as moral failings than symptoms of someone terrified of emotional intimacy and adulthood.

As Peter slowly adapts to fatherhood, “CLUB KID” shifts into unexpectedly moving territory. In one of the film’s emotional high points, Peter realizes that Arlo’s admiration has given him something he never previously possessed: a reason to move forward. The film suggests that compassion, both for others and oneself, can become a form of survival.

Visually, the film also impresses. Shot on 35mm by cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra, “CLUB KID” balances the neon textures of queer nightlife with softer, more intimate domestic moments. The grainy warmth of the image gives the film an emotional tactility that mirrors Peter’s gradual rediscovery of human connection.

The supporting cast, including Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva and Miss Benny, contributes to the film’s loose, lived-in atmosphere, while British musician Shygirl makes a memorable cameo appearance as herself. But the film belongs overwhelmingly to Firstman and Absolom, whose awkward, evolving chemistry anchors the emotional core of the story.

Following its Cannes premiere, “CLUB KID” reportedly sparked intense acquisition interest from studios and distributors including A24, Netflix, Mubi, Searchlight and Focus Features, with bidding climbing into seven and eight figures. The enthusiasm is understandable. The film has the emotional accessibility and specificity to become a genuine crossover indie success.

More importantly, “CLUB KID” reveals Jordan Firstman as something more substantial than a social media provocateur turned actor. Beneath the irony and nightlife chaos lies a filmmaker deeply interested in vulnerability, loneliness and the fragile process of becoming a better version of oneself.

What could have been a smug exercise in queer cool instead becomes one of Cannes’s sweetest and most emotionally generous films.