Lurker
Théodore Pellerin plays an obsessive fan who finagles his way into a pop star's entourage in this smart cautionary thriller that avoids moral absolutes
In writer-director Alex Russell’s cautionary thriller about stan life, “I’m with the band” becomes a psychic vortex as an interloper penetrates the circle of trust and reshapes it in their own disturbed image. From Rob Reiner's Misery to Donald Glover and Janine Nabers’ Swarm, we have seen the violent delights of obsession reach violent ends as professed love mutates into unforgiving control. Lurker has familiar machinations but is more quietly torturous, as it presses on the specific desperations of the attention economy and its impermanent currencies.
Lurker inspects the parasite du jour: the wannabe creative director. Théodore Pellerin plays Matty, a retail worker who ingratiates himself with his favourite cool-guy, alt-pop star Oliver (Archie Madekwe), in a manipulated meet-cute that lands him his dream gig: a bona fide member of the music entourage as Oliver's on-call documentarian. Capturing the artist in situ on home video and on tour, he becomes an almost comic voyeur, emboldened – and armed – with a camcorder, capturing Oliver’s every angle in disquieting proximity. On the payroll and at the party, Matty forges an identity from the newfound street cred of an inflated reality. But when the fatal yes-men hierarchy undergoes a re-shuffle, third-wheeling becomes psychological warfare.
Russell artfully distorts moral absolutes as everyone on screen is, in part, to be pitied and feared. Lurker presents access and attention as dangerous humiliations and warns of the interminable transaction that is success. Let the good times erode you.
Released 12 Dec by Universal; certificate 15