Recxpectations: Club Kid

Club Kid (New Thing #11) is an arrested development coming-of-age story from Jordan Firstman, who I first noticed in “I Love LA.” It’s about a party promoter whose life is thrown into chaos when he finds out that he has a biological son who he now has to take care of.

DON’T EXPECT: A FILM ABOUT RAISING A KID
The actual kid in Club Kid is merely a plot* device. It’s almost an inverse of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl; there isn’t a single moment about the child that isn’t in the film to forward Jordan Firstman’s character’s growth or give us a window into his character. This issue is easy to ignore at the start of the film but, as it goes on, it becomes more glaring.
*Plot device feels wrong because this is a character piece and not a plot driven film. There isn’t really a story point that is followed through to an end. Hurdles are introduced but then ignored as the entire point was just to show how having responsibility has affected the main character.
This film is the idyllic idea of being a parent. I don’t have kids and even I was like, “Whoever wrote this doesn’t have kids.’

EXPECT: SCENE STEALING PERFORMANCES
Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Eldar Isgandarov are amazing in the film and hopefully will get them more work. Especially Kirby who has been woefully underutilized over the years. Her and Cush Jumbo are near the top of my list of actors who I think should get a shot at leading roles.

EXPECT: TWO HOURS
I went in expecting this would be a 90 minute film and was surprised to see that it was two hours and two minutes. The film is VERY entertaining and had a couple of laugh out loud moments (which is big for me since I very rarely literally laugh out loud in the theater) but I must confess that I did check the time two or three times during the film. I don’t think there is a lot of wasted space in the film, the pacing is just a bit slower, almost a throwback to character pieces of yesteryear.

EXPECT: THE GUY FROM BABYLON
This is neither here nor there but when Diego Calva popped up in the film, I was racking my brain as to where I had seen him before. I’m sure he’s done a bunch of other work but I knew him from Babylon and I didn’t put that together until I started typing this up.