Lurker (now streaming on HBO Max) stares long and hard at a parasocial relationship that becomes… something else. Don’t know how else to describe it, but maybe we’ll find some space in all the wiggle room to figure it out here. In the debut feature from Alex Russell, whose writing and production credits include Beef and The Bear, Theodore Pellerin stars as an odd duck who weasels his way into the entourage of a burgeoning pop star played by Archie Madekwe – and the result is a remarkably awkward and unsettling almost-funny-but-not-quite drama about power dynamics and modern male relationships.
LURKER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: “Look – he’s back.” That’s Oliver (Madekwe) wandering into a trendy L.A. clothing shop. Matthew (Pellerin) works there. Matthew acts like he doesn’t recognize the guy. Matthew cues up a Nile Rodgers song that he knows Oliver loves – he saw it on the singer’s Instagram – and pretends that it’s a coincidence. Matthew projects authenticity. Matthew endears himself to this near-superstar. Matthew earns a personal invitation to tonight’s concert. “I need a real person there,” Oliver says, and yes, it’s a classic case of dramatic irony, but with a wrinkle, because beyond the consistently uncomfortable manner with which Matthew carries himself we don’t know enough about him to ascertain his motives. Will we ever know him or understand him? I’m not sure. There’s a certain impenetrability about him that seems well-practiced and almost alien. But we sort of give him the benefit of the doubt. Some people are just, you know, awkward.
Matthew leaves the home where he lives with his grandmother and bicycles to the club and is greeted by one of Oliver’s handlers, Shai (Havana Rose Liu), and is ushered backstage to a lounge area where Oliver sits with maybe a half-dozen people in his inner circle who proceed to haze Matthew in a manner that isn’t brutal but is definitely childish and would definitely prompt most of us to say fuck this and fuck you for fucking with me as we walk out but Matthew, he hangs in there. He makes them laugh. You win is the sentiment and next thing you know Matthew’s side stage watching Oliver perform for an adoring audience. What follows sounds like sincere flattery: Matthew says he recognizes Oliver’s authenticity, and Oliver says, “What are you doing for the next few weeks?”
The next day, Matthew bikes to Oliver’s sprawling house in the hills where he lives with his friends, hangers-on and people who work for him, and their roles all swirl together into a nebulous soup of impenetrable personal-professional muck. Interesting: Matthew’s arrival finds one of these people escorted out, never to be seen again in this movie – there’s only so much room around here, it seems. More deeply awkward sincerity between Oliver and Matthew follows, then Matthew is tasked with cleaning up the house and doing laundry. Soon enough, Matthew proves himself worthy by getting out his old camcorder and shooting some retro-rad footage of Oliver screwing around, prompting the artist’s videographer to adopt Matthew as his “sous chef,” although the wordless power struggle Matthew initiates suggests he’d prefer to have a more prestigious title.
Matthew talks to Oliver about family. Oliver doesn’t seem to want to talk about his mother and Matthew asserts that he recognizes Oliver’s talent more than the people who raised him. The conversation coalesces with Oliver saying, “I have a new family now, and I get to choose who’s in it.” Seems like Matthew’s in it now but being in it means being subject to some strange passive-aggressive whims that strike me as being the product of fame, of others constantly wanting a piece of you. Enough time passes for Matthew to become a staple on Oliver’s Instagram feed, and he’s recognized as such while futzing with hangers at the clothing store. He has a “cult following” now, a random shopper tells him. “Damn,” Matthew’s coworker says, “you really made it.”
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The Talented Mr. Ripley is the big one, with some Nightcrawler vibes and I’m-your-biggest-fan Miseryisms, some of the strangeness we experienced watching Friendship and similar thematics from Saltburn (which also starred Madekwe), albeit far more subtle.
Performance Worth Watching: Madekwe and Pellerin are equally strong in conveying the silent power struggle between their characters – the former projects the vulnerability lurking beneath the thin veil of stardom, and the latter suggests a level of sociopathy within a troubling lack of self-awareness.
Sex And Skin: A deeply creepy non-graphic sex scene.
Our Take: It’s not a spoiler to say Lurker baits us into thinking it might be a significantly more nuanced buildup to violence like, say, Fatal Attraction or something, but it never takes that obvious narrative route. Its primary thrust is psychological. Matthew’s hard to pin down, even for those of us hip to all the dramatic irony here. But he appears to desire money, fame and/or influence, and likely understands that bold overtures aren’t going to get it for him – proximity may be his end goal, because you and I know that the puppet master holds all the power, not the puppet. By that token, Russell understands that a subtle facial expression gets you farther and deeper into the tantalizing ambiguity of Matthew’s likely psychosis than shouting and physical violence ever will. Leave that shit for corny Hollywood pictures, Lurker silently asserts.
Russell’s calculatedly cryptic screenplay shows that he and the cast are willing to operate within a fog, a vagueness, that spikes curiosity rather than frustration. The film seeks to capture and hold our attention so it can challenge us by downplaying the bigger dramatic beats, pushing us further into the space where seemingly opposite personalities like Matthew and Oliver’s blend together into something quietly toxic. And we find ourselves unable to define the nature of their relationship within recognizable parameters. Is there unspoken sexual longing here? These men are surely lonely, but how deep does that hollow well go? And how does fame complicate, well, everything? In Lurker, notoriety renders the dividing line between glory and doom disconcertingly thin.
Our Call: Lurker is a tense, fascinating character study. STREAM IT.
How To Watch Lurker
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If you want to stream even more and save a few bucks a month while you’re at it, we recommend subscribing to one of the discounted Disney+ Bundles with Hulu and HBO Max. With ads, the bundle costs $19.99/month and without ads, $32.99/month.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.
