Lurker

The opening scene of a film is incredibly important. It's the movie's first chance to make an impression, to bring you into its world, to convey information that will be impactful later. Lurker accomplishes this with ruthless efficiency. We open as Oliver (Archie Medekwe) enters a clothing store in LA, drawing the attention of the patrons. He's well-known enough that almost everyone takes note, but not so much that he has a security detail. Our focus is on employee Matthew Morning (Théodore Pellerin), who's similarly locked onto the star, but intent on pretending to have no idea who he is. He makes a beeline to the store speakers and throws on a song he knows will speak to Oliver's self-image, instantly ingratiating himself and earning an invite to hang out backstage at that evening's show, cementing the implication that Oliver is a rising pop star. Matthew is as awkward and insecure during that initial meeting as you'd expect, maybe even more, but his skill at deception (with which we'll soon be intimately familiar) carries him through. As does his willful neglect in that moment of his friend and co-worker Jamie (Sunny Suljic).

So with zero exposition, we already know that Matthew is obsessed with Oliver, and desperately wants into his orbit, despite not really knowing what he'll do once there. He's a good liar, uses research to bolster his fibs, and is willing to do what's needed to achieve his desired outcomes. Unsurprisingly, he also shows some sociopathic tendencies, as he understands appropriate behavior and knows how to embody it, although it takes noticeable effort for him to do so. His loved ones become disposable obstacles if he perceives them getting in his way. These traits prove the basic road map to his personality, forming the foundation of what we're going to witness over the next one hundred minutes.

After that fateful meeting, the direction of the story is revealed very slowly. For the first half, we hang out with Matthew as he worms his way deeper into the pop star's inner circle, finding stuff to do around the house Oliver shares with his posse, and silently accepting the demeaning and passive aggressive treatment he receives. In his refusal to strike back, we see him taking in the group's power dynamics, and searching for how to upend them. It may be as simple as making himself too useful to cast aside, such as when he learns Adobe Premier via online tutorials so he can step into the role of the crew's documentarian. Although it doesn't take long before he seeks to sabotage others to gain a foot hold. The most direct target is Noah (Daniel Zolghadri), the group's video editor; Matthew hides his camera batteries, so they're forced to use his own camera in the middle of a shoot, harming Noah's stature. Most stomach turning are his attempts to prevent a friend and rival from joining them for a photoshoot abroad. While we already understand Matthew's lack of scruples, after he's shunned by the group for taking it a step too far, any sense of concern for others goes out the window as he becomes obsessively and recklessly focused on his own advancement at the expense of everything and everyone else.

Such a turn is pulled off with aplomb by the combination of stellar, confident camerawork from cinematographer Patrick Scola and Pellerin's spellbinding performance. We've been taking note of how intense and dead-eyed Matthew has been the whole time, as well as his outsized expressions of joy, hinting at a lack of sincerity. So when the flip comes, Peron's decision to capture a bunch of long, steady, unemotional stares from Matthew followed by explosions of laughter is incredibly effective at making the audience as uncomfortable as the characters. These scenes play out far longer than you'd expect, almost certain to cause you to squirm in your seat by their merciful end. The culmination is that you start chanting for Oliver's circle to realize what's going on and take more decisive action, but all of them are too enmeshed in the basic game that he left behind long ago. Or to use his words "We're all the same. I just want it more. And I'm better." It's in these moments that Pellerin perfectly capitalizes on how unsettling Matthew was in the first half to make your heart race and your blood run cold in the second.

The difficulty of such a story is avoiding stretching credulity too much. Like the closely related Nightcrawler, Lurker isn't quite up to the task. The narrative is forced to walk a narrow tightrope between extreme and silly, and while it gets it right most of the time, the miscalculations leap out as contrivances rather than flowing from the situation, setting it more apart from reality than it wants to be. Some even slide into silly, slightly defusing the tension in moments that otherwise scream anxiety. While the interactions with his grandmother help drive home how immature and petulant he is, it's so cliched and sitcom-adjacent as to be humorous. And the idea that Swett (Zack Fox) and Sebastian (Cam Hicks) let down their guard due to his skill at Mortal Kombat both rings true and reduces them to harmless goofballs, instead of the power-hungry sharks that Matthew sees them as.

This situates the movie closer to a schlocky B-picture with A-tier production values rather than the dagger aimed at the music industry implied by its tone. It's not aided in its endeavor by some of the more salacious elements of the back half, although it stays far away from exploitation territory. The writing begins to show through as the sharp points about power plays and parasocial relationships fall away in favor of beats that scream "Can you believe this?". Its saving grace is Madekwe's skillful dialing up of Oliver's desperation to cling to his fame and ambition to climb higher as the risk of it all disappearing becomes more and more real. Our sympathy had been growing for him all through the back half, which allows the chilling final reveal to play quite well. Although it's a let down that the summation of it all is to reinforce a sentiment made undeniable over the past decade: the only difference between being society hailing you as brilliant and condemning you as a monster is how much talent you have.