‘Lurker’ Review: Writer-Director Alex Russell Crafts a Symbiotic Power Struggle with Paranoid Pop Star Thriller [B+]
Online fandom and fame-hunger have gotten so intense in the last decade or so that it’s a bit surprising there haven’t been more films like Lurker. The debut from writer-director Alex Russell (The Bear) may draw deep from the well of similarly unhinged social-climber films like Nightcrawler or Ingrid Goes West (or, for those who recognize star Archie Madekwe, Saltburn) but the attention given towards modern pop stardom injects enough of a jolt to feel like it’s got something new to say.
Like all thrillers, it starts off innocuous enough: retail clerk Matthew (Théodore Pellerin) changes the music in his store when he sees burgeoning pop star Oliver (Madekwe) enter, garnering his attention from playing a Chic deep cut. Of course what Oliver doesn’t know is that Matthew has been obsessively following his socials in a way that borders on stalking, but nonetheless gets him invited backstage to Oliver’s concert. Importantly, Matthew showcases a willingness to debase himself when – at the behest of Zack Fox’s Swett (very funny throughout) – he pulls down his pants in front of the rest of the entourage. Although he gets in with Shai (Havana Rose Liu), Oliver’s manager, and an ostensible role as a documentarian thanks to an old DV camcorder, Matthew finds himself mostly cleaning up for the others, hanging around a guy who barely seems like he remembers him until he wants a music video shot.
For a while, it seems as though Lurker is playing with the idea of the inner circle as something of a parasitic relationship. Matthew clocks early on that Oliver’s interests don’t last too long, and Russell is careful not to verge too fast into the battle for his attention, namely with Noah (Daniel Zolghadri), Oliver’s videographer. Russell has said in press releases that there’s a universality in this dynamic among male entourages, something that both helps and hinders the film. What can feel most disappointing is how sketchy the portrait of a modern day (male) pop star is; it’s a bit unclear whether Oliver is actually signed to a label, how big of a reach he has, etc. As portrayed by Madekwe, Oliver himself is rather charismatic, but prone to speaking in platitudes, making the kind of anodyne pop music you can find all over the charts right now.
One of Russell’s more scathing suggestions is that being a Stan (much less a fan) nowadays doesn’t even require much real engagement or even knowledge with a person’s work; Pellerin makes Matthew come off as a normal if awkward twentysomething, perhaps isolated and lonely like much of his generation, and the thrust of the first act comes mainly from him struggling to stay in a circle where it feels like he matters. Slowly, it becomes less of a struggle and something more like a need for control, especially when his former coworker (Sunny Seljic) comes into the mix and threatens to steal his spot. The score in these instances – from Kenny Beats – can come across as slightly overbearing though fittingly paranoid as things culminate in a scene surprisingly reminiscent of the big break from Friendship, though in much darker circumstances.
“Paranoia” is the best way to describe the film’s tone, and Russell achieves it in part through Pat Scola’s cinematography, which emphasizes the sterile bright lights of an airplane cabin or mountains surrounding the house where Oliver and his entourage gather, not to mention the frequent close-ups on Matthew’s face as he hurriedly scrolls the internet. The film achieves a certain amount of tension from Matthew’s action’s, but what drives him remains a bit opaque. It’s tempting to view it through the lens of homoeroticism but the film as a whole feels too desexualized for that to be an explanation. There is a form of jealousy floating around in his reactions – notably when a former coworker begins to garner Oliver’s attention, and it’s here that Lurker threatens to go a bit too far off the deep end. Without getting too specific, Matthew almost becomes some sort of psychotic supervillain who starts to behave like there’s something genuinely wrong with him in an unbalanced sort of way. It also highlights the conspicuous lack of women (even girlfriends or groupies) floating around the film; Liu is compelling but she never gets as much to do as she should. To its credit, the film does manage to depict something of a downward spiral – starting with the installation of surveillance cameras that lead to a pretty tense scene of Oliver trying to get the footage – but unlike that thread, this twist doesn’t quite feel like it makes much of a statement.
Lurker ultimately rights the ship, in the end revealing itself to be a film about exploitation, where the line between who’s exploited and who’s exploiting becomes so blurred as to be nonexistent by the end. Russell chooses a more cynical path to end on, where Matthew and Oliver – as the former says towards the beginning of the film – have “gotten everything they wanted” but not in a way that would make them feel particularly good. It’s the kind of ending that lingers with you after you leave, enhancing enough to forgive the small stumbles. It’s a film that asks what you would do to keep just a sliver of notoriety when the gaping maw of irrelevance is always a misstep away, and does so with grand humor and piercing insight.
Grade: B+
MUBI will release Lurker only in theaters on August 22.
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