\n<\/p>\n
I<\/span>f Tom Ripley lived in LA in 2018 and was really into lo-fi bedroom pop, he might look something like the main character of Lurker. The debut feature from Alex Russell, The Bear and Beef writer-producer, is an elegantly creepy thriller about one super-fan\u2019s scheme to become close to his musical idol, transposing author Patricia Highsmith\u2019s \u201ctwo-man theme\u201d into a murkier grey territory, with parasitic attachment giving way to co-dependence that blooms into something that looks like a twisted kind of love.<\/p>\n The lurker of the title is Matthew (Th\u00e9odore Pellerin), an isolated twentysomething who lives with his grandma and works shifts at a local vintage boutique to make ends meet. After a chance run-in with his idol Oliver (Saltburn\u2019s Archie Madekwe) at the vintage store where he works, Matthew worms his way into Oliver\u2019s entourage and makes himself indispensable \u2013 first as a videographer, then confidante and then as someone who has the power to make Oliver\u2019s enviable life come crashing down. \u201cThe thing I found relatable is that no one tells you how lonely being any version of an artist is,\u201d says Madekwe. \u201cOliver needs someone outside the paid [members of his team] to say \u2018Yeah, I fuck with it. I get it. You\u2019re so real.\u2019 He needs it because he knows that he\u2019s a bit of a fraud anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m chatting with the director and leads of Lurker at a swishy New York hotel as part of a busy day of interviews and photo calls. They\u2019re getting through the week of promotion with a playful sense of humour, as well as a little fraternal rough and tumble. Earlier in the day, they filmed a social media skit which involves Pellerin perched on Madekwe\u2019s lap, and Madekwe teases his co-star that he would be \u201cso much better\u201d in Pellerin\u2019s role of Matthew.<\/p>\n Madekwe did, in fact, initially audition for the role of Matthew. But it\u2019s hard to imagine who could play him quite like Pellerin, a deserved arthouse darling after quietly compelling performances in Never Rarely Sometimes Always and Solo. In the Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois actor\u2019s hands, he\u2019s both a grifter with a cruel coercive streak and a whimsical kid whose face lights up while dancing around the kitchen with his nan. After an oddly homoerotic hazing ritual \u2013 and advice from an entourage member (Zack Fox) to stop acting \u201clike some kind of tour thot\u201d \u2013 Matthew assumes a superfluous role of videographer with the crew.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cThere was something endearing about his awkwardness and his desperate need to be a part of something,\u201d says Pellerin, sipping a matcha latte. \u201cAfter being subjected to Oliver and his friends\u2019 games and humiliations, there\u2019s a decision of \u2018I\u2019m not going to let this happen any more, I\u2019m going to up my game.\u2019\u201d He adds that the mindset reminded him of his experiences at school in Montreal. \u201cI felt like that and tried that as a kid, when I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t want to be the one who gets rejected any more.\u2019 It would work for two weeks, and then it wouldn\u2019t. And it was like, \u2018What can I do to have friends?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Before shooting the film, Russell took Pellerin to some celebrity parties in LA, which bizarrely included Paris Hilton\u2019s birthday party. Pellerin filmed what was unfolding on a handheld camcorder, and no one batted an eye. \u201cEveryone\u2019s already recording stuff on their phone,\u201d says Russell. \u201cIn a way, someone with a camcorder is more wholesome.\u201d<\/p>\n The Lurker set sounds something like a party in itself, where Russell\u2019s friends in the LA music scene would drop by to hang out with the crew. \u201cEvery day he was having the best day of his life,\u201d says Madekwe. \u201cBut it was really useful because that\u2019s not my world at all.\u201d Plus it allowed Pellerin, who grew up speaking French and only learned English at 18, to master the scene\u2019s vernacular. \u201cIt\u2019s not my world at all, so on set I\u2019d be trying it out\u201d \u2013 he flips into the slurred voice of a SoCal stoner \u2013 \u201cThat\u2019s crazy, bruh.\u201d<\/p>\n Set in pre-Covid LA, Lurker is holistically imbued with the first-hand experiences of Russell, who has written for music magazines such as the Fader and Complex and also co-wrote the Brockhampton short film Billy Star with band member Kevin Abstract. Russell\u2019s career history likely has something to do with the film\u2019s arch view of celebrity. Oliver\u2019s music sounds like the kind of frictionless fare of a \u201cbeats to study to\u201d playlist, and he seems to view Matthew as a kind of musical sensei based on his knowledge of Nile Rodgers \u2026 the most famous funk musician in history. I\u2019m curious if Russell has heard of any real-life instances of the blackmail that his movie depicts. There\u2019s a long pause before the director nods yes. He won\u2019t name names, but he says that he\u2019s \u201cheard of this kind of thing happening\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/span>Archie Madekwe in Lurker.<\/span> Photograph: AP<\/p>\n Plenty of mediocre art has been made about social media obsession, a fact I am reminded of today as I wait for the trio opposite a large painting of a woman taking a selfie. Russell strikes a delicate tonal balance between the pulpy fun of 90s erotic thrillers, a genre which the director says he binged after writing Lurker, as well as the complexity of European arthouse. Even so, they\u2019re game to lean into the movie\u2019s popcorn pleasures, and tomorrow the trio will fly to LA for a live reading of Single White Female, which Madekwe cheerfully admits he hasn\u2019t seen in full: \u201cI started watching it in my hotel, I\u2019m 40 minutes in!\u201d While Russell\u2019s movie hits similar pleasure centres to its 90s forebears \u2013 including the sexual tension between its leads \u2013 it respects its viewers enough to do away with straight-forward tropes of white knights and boogeymen. There is a version of this movie, I tell Russell, that is hopelessly corny. \u201cThe worst!\u201d he agrees. \u201cAt every step, I was trying to run as far away from that as I could.\u201d<\/p>\n That fear didn\u2019t quite dissipate until Russell stepped on set and saw his two leads nail the complex magnetism that draws them together. After shooting the scene in which they meet in the vintage store, Madekwe walked to the back of the set to chat to Russell, and found the director getting emotional while watching back footage of the actors. \u201cI was like, \u2018How you doing?\u2019\u201d recalls Madekwe. \u201cAnd you were crying.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t crying<\/em>,\u201d laughs Russell, \u201cbut tears were welling up \u2013 tears of relief. Once I saw the two of them on the monitor I knew the tapestry of the whole thing would work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If Tom Ripley lived in LA in 2018 and was really into lo-fi bedroom pop, he might look something like the main character of Lurker. The debut feature from Alex Russell, The Bear and Beef writer-producer, is an elegantly creepy thriller about one super-fan\u2019s scheme to become close to his musical idol, transposing author Patricia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[8591,10403,8423,10402,3558,7544,10404,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-17275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-blackmail","9":"tag-compelling","10":"tag-instagram","11":"tag-lurker","12":"tag-obsession","13":"tag-thriller","14":"tag-thrillers","15":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}