Alex Russell’s debut feature, Lurker, is a mask-off exploration of rabid stan culture taken to extremes. When ascendant pop star Oliver (Archie Madekwe) walks into Matthew’s (Théodore Pellerin) Los Angeles clothing boutique, only the latter could have hoped that playing Nile Rogers’ “My Love Song For You” from the store speakers — a cue for the audience of the degree to which the film will use music as a blunt thematic instrument – would change both of their lives. Oliver is stunned by Matthew’s unique taste, unaware that Matthew is one of his biggest fans and knows how much the song means to him. Matthew lies that he’s never heard Oliver’s music before, which is apparently exactly what Oliver wanted to hear. A backstage pass to that night’s performance in-hand, Matthew has one foot inside Oliver’s inner circle.
The path to staying in Oliver’s good graces, however, is circuitous — often bogged down in various humiliations and petty indignities. Oliver’s posse convinces him to take his pants off in their first meeting, a test of his willingness to subject himself to embarrassment for the privilege of proximity. Matthew obliges, dropping his underwear for good measure. In a game of performance and one-upmanship, where the grand prize is a chance to play court jester to a pop music prince, no one, not even Oliver’s most devoted underlings, is going to beat him.
But for all of Matthew’s desperate capitulations to Oliver’s, and his posse’s, whims — including a stint as unofficial housekeeper and assistant to the team’s official videographer — Russell and his film struggle to answer an important question: why Oliver? He is, generously, a competent pop musician. His songs, many of which we hear and see him perform, are pleasantly anonymous confections. But he lacks, despite Madekwe’s alternately aloof and fiery performance, an electrifying spark that might convince an otherwise normal person to drop their whole lives and hit the road. And perhaps that’s the point. His musical taste aside — and that taste is definitely up for debate — Matthew is less obsessed with proximity to a great artist than he is with proximity to incipient cultural power. Mere weeks into his stint as part of Oliver’s posse, he begins to accrue his own cult following in the blurry margins of Oliver’s inexplicably influential spotlight.
True to the film’s title, competition and the threat of exposure both lurk in the background. Matthew’s co-worker, Jamie (Sunny Suljic), joins Oliver’s happy family as unofficial stylist and threatens Matthew’s position as Oliver’s favorite. Oliver’s manager, Shai (a wonderful Havana Rose Liu), threatens from another angle. Her knowing, almost accusatory glances find Matthew without fail, often from the background of Russell’s energetic compositions. Though we know nothing about her other than her loose role within this very masculine group, she remains an incredibly lucid character; perhaps more intimidating than her power to expose Matthew’s less than honest intentions is the ease with which she identifies them. One can only imagine the stream of sycophants she’s accommodated during Oliver’s rise.
Though Shai regrettably disappears from the film’s most important climactic moments in the final third, Matthew’s increasingly violent and unethical methods of maintaining his position in the hierarchy of Oliver’s affections are enough to at least warrant sustained attention. Lurker is, however, a very legible film. Its narrative trajectory and thematic underpinnings are identifiable from a great distance, and invite the viewer to take several steps ahead of itself. Despite the influx of sex, drugs, rock n’roll, and even queer entrapment, there’s no escaping the tedious transparency of Russell’s preoccupations. Power attracts the power-hungry, power begets more power, and the maintenance of power necessitates extreme behavior. As Matthew runs headlong into the reality of saving face and maintaining his enviable position in the life of this pop star, we realize, long before he does, that the ultimate prize is inferior to its price.
DIRECTOR: Alex Russell; CAST: Théodore Pellerin, Archie Madekwe, Sunny Suljic, Chase Sui Wonders; DISTRIBUTOR: MUBI; IN THEATERS: August 22; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 40 min.
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