It would be all too easy to dismiss Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid as an LGBTQ-oriented take on Big Daddy, the 1999 comedy in which Adam Sandler plays an unmotivated slacker who unexpectedly becomes a kid’s guardian, because that’s basically what it is.
Which isn’t to say Club Kid is a bad movie. Far from it. But if you’ve seen the Sandler film — or any of the countless other movies about a commitment-phobic or immature adult suddenly thrust into a parental role — you basically know what to expect.
And that’s part of what makes this new film — Firstman’s, ahem, first time as a feature film writer and director — so compelling: It takes a story we’ve seen a hundred times before and gives it fresh energy, style, and emotional punch.
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