The Lurker (now streaming on HBO Max) stares long and hard at a parasocial relationship that becomes… something else. I don’t know how else to explain it, but maybe we’ll find room in every room to get it here. In the first feature from Alex Russell, his writing and production credits include Cow again BovaTheodore Pellerin stars as the odd duck who falls in with a rising pop star played by Archie Madekwe – and the result is a surprisingly awkward and unsettling almost-funny-yet-uncanny drama about power dynamics and modern male relationships.
LURKER: SPREAD OR SKIP?
Idea: “Look – he’s back.” It’s Oliver (Madekwe) who wanders into a trendy LA clothing store. Matthew (Pellerin) works there. Matthew acted as if he didn’t know the boy. Matthew digs into a Nile Rodgers song that he knows Oliver likes – he saw it on the singer’s Instagram – and pretends it’s a coincidence. Matthew expresses the truth. Matthew is loved by this nearby star. Matthew earns a personal invitation to tonight’s concert. “I need a real person in there,” Oliver says, and yes, it’s a funny, but shriveled classic, because as uncomfortable as Matthew is, we don’t know enough about him to figure out his motivations. Will we ever know or understand him? I’m not sure. There is a certain impenetrability about him that seems well done and almost unrecognizable. But we give him the benefit of the doubt. Some people are just, you know, weird.
Matthew leaves the home where he lives with his grandmother and bikes to the club and is greeted by one of Oliver’s bosses, Shai (Havana Rose Liu), and is ushered backstage into a lounge where Oliver sits with maybe half of the people in his inner circle who continue to smoke Matthew in a way that is not cruel but encouraging and certainly encouraging to most of us. take care of this and take care of yourself by taking care of me as we are leaving but Matthew, he is hanging there. He laughs at them. You won feeling and the next thing you know Matthew’s stage is watching Oliver perform to an adoring audience. What follows sounds like sincere flattery: Matthew says he sees Oliver’s genuineness, and Oliver says, “What are you doing for the next few weeks?”
The next day, Matthew rides his bike to Oliver’s mountain chain home where he lives with his friends, his staff and the people who work for him, and their roles swirl together into an impenetrable soup of professional personals. Interesting: Matthew’s arrival finds one of these people thrown out, never to be seen again in the film – there’s too much room here, it seems. A serious confrontation between Oliver and Matthew ensues, and Matthew is given the job of cleaning the house and doing the laundry. Soon, Matthew proves himself worthy by pulling out his vintage camcorder and snapping retro-rad footage of Oliver throwing, prompting the artist videographer to consider Matthew his “sweet chef,” though the wordless power struggle Matthew begins suggests he’d rather have the honorary title.
Matthew talks to Oliver about family. It seems Oliver doesn’t want to talk about his mother and Matthew confirms that he he sees Oliver’s talent beyond the people who raised him. The interview cuts to Oliver saying, “I have a new family now, and I get to choose what’s in it.” It looks like Matthew is in it now but to be in it means to be under some strange feelings of idleness that strike me as a product of fame, of others always wanting a piece of you. Enough time passes for Matthew to become a staple of Oliver’s Instagram feed, and he’s known for messing with hangers in a clothing store. “He’s got a cult following” now, a random shopper tells him. A staff member who works with Matthew says: “He’s really successful.
What Movies Will They Remind You Of? Mr. The Talented Ripley great, and others Nightcrawler vibes and I’m your biggest fan Sadnessisms, some of the oddities we found in viewing Friendship and similar themes emerge Saltburn (who also starred with Madekwe), although it is very subtle.
Performances to Watch: Madekwe and Pellerin are equally adept at conveying the quiet power struggle between their characters – the former projects a hidden danger beneath a thin veil of popularity, and the latter suggests a level of sociality within a troubling lack of self-awareness.
Sex and Skin: A scary non-graphic sex scene.
Ours: It’s not a waste to say The Lurker leads us to think that it may be a construction of violence such as, Fatal Attraction or something, but it never takes that obvious narrative route. Its main goal is psychological. It’s hard to explain Matthew, even for those of us who love the wonderful sarcasm here. But he seems to want money, fame and/or influence, and he probably understands that going overboard won’t get him – getting close might be his ultimate goal, because you and I know that the master puppeteer holds all the power, not the puppet. For that reason, Russell understands that the furtive facial expression drives you further and deeper into the surprising ambiguity of Matthew’s possible mind than shouting and physical violence. Leave that shit with corny Hollywood pictures, The Lurker it quietly asserted.
Russell’s hidden screen shot shows that he and the cast are willing to work within the fog, something that is vague, fostering curiosity rather than frustration. The film seeks to capture and hold our attention to challenge us by understating the big beats, driving us to a place where seemingly opposite people like Matthew and Oliver come together into something quietly toxic. And we find ourselves unable to define the nature of their relationship within physical parameters. Is there a sexual desire that is not mentioned here? These men are truly lonely, but how deep is that well? And how does fame include, well, everything? In The Lurkerthunder makes the dividing line between glory and destruction inexplicably thin.
Our Phone: The Lurker an intense, engaging character study. It’s already spread.
How to Watch The Lurker
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John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog lied once.
