A gay father-son drama that knows how to party.

There’s a lot of gay pride, drama, humor, and DJ music in “Club Kid,” and it delivers with creativity by Jordan Fistman, who casts himself as well. I haven’t heard of him before, but I have caught on to a few things. He is gay, and his background includes his short skits “Impressions,” and his roles in movies like “Rotting in the Sun” and “You People.” And his feature directorial debut allows him to excel as an actor and filmmaker.

We meet Peter (Fistman), a gay NYC party promoter, junkie, and drug dealer, who gets fired by his business partner Sophie (Cara Delevingne). One day, he finds out from a British party animal (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) that her friend has a son named Arlo (newcomer Reggie Absolom) and kills herself. The boy is Peter’s son, because he had sex with his mother when he was stoned out of his mind. That’s when that party animal leaves the boy on his doorstep, and that’s when the bonding begins.

Now that he’s a father with a big responsibility, Peter tries to understand the kid and learn to cooperate with him. Despite having a terrible step-father in the past, his new environment, and a small playground fight he gets in, Arlo remains kind and optimistic. While the kid falls in love with DJing, Peter also has a romantic fling with a social worker named Oscar (Diego Calva). And of course, the movie would come down to the matter of custody, which is less stressful as it would be in other films.

Believe me, I’ve seen how cynical and desperate “Instructions Not Included” was. And he doesn’t make multiple sperm donations like the main loser in “Starbuck” and its American remake “Delivery Man.” So, I’d say Peter has a lot of good odds. Or maybe there are rules and principles that must be obliged.

The weakest parts of “Club Kid” are the nightclub parties that drag on and have too much flashing. I’m not really into these kinds of scenes in any movie, so there’s nothing wrong with what Fistman is presenting. It’s not him, it’s me. And given the flashing, this is when you hope movie theaters will warn people with epilepsy of them. But they don’t last forever or become the film’s identity. Instead, it takes a formula we’ve seen done before, and provides some levity and creativity into it. And it couldn’t be funnier and more emotional.

Fistman makes a revelation of himself with this movie, and yet, he’s generous enough to share the screen with Absolom and Calva. The kid actor delivers by breaking free from the tropes that any kid in a movie like this would deal with. And despite the social worker’s doubts, you know a relationship with emerge, and Calva does a good job displaying that. And we also get comical supporting work from Howell-Baptiste, as well as Eldar Isgandarov as Peter’s aimless roommate, and Colleen Camp as their neighbor.

Another thing that delivers is that like “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York,” we get to see the city from a different angle. We’re seeing downtown through the eyes of the main protagonist. I travel to the city a lot, and I know when a film wants to be as authentic as it can be. And like that John Turturro gem, the end credits have a view of the NYC area. It’s always going to be a character in a movie, and it’s a great character at that.

I’ve mentioned before that I haven’t heard of Fistman, but then again, I said the same thing about Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson when I praised “Saint Frances.” If they both can keep breaking new grounds as they just did with “Mouse,” then I know Fistman has a voice in cinema. And given the acting and atmosphere, I’m surprised Sean Baker had nothing to do with this.

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