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’s scheme to become close to his musical idol, transposing author Patricia Highsmith’s “two-man theme” 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.
The lurker of the title is Matthew (Théodore 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’s Archie Madekwe) at the vintage store where he works, Matthew worms his way into Oliver’s entourage and makes himself indispensable – first as a videographer, then confidante and then as someone who has the power to make Oliver’s enviable life come crashing down. “The thing I found relatable is that no one tells you how lonely being any version of an artist is,” says Madekwe. “Oliver needs someone outside the paid [members of his team] to say ‘Yeah, I fuck with it. I get it. You’re so real.’ He needs it because he knows that he’s a bit of a fraud anyway.”
I’m 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’re 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’s lap, and Madekwe teases his co-star that he would be “so much better” in Pellerin’s role of Matthew.
Madekwe did, in fact, initially audition for the role of Matthew. But it’s 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 Québécois actor’s hands, he’s 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 – and advice from an entourage member (Zack Fox) to stop acting “like some kind of tour thot” – Matthew assumes a superfluous role of videographer with the crew.
“There was something endearing about his awkwardness and his desperate need to be a part of something,” says Pellerin, sipping a matcha latte. “After being subjected to Oliver and his friends’ games and humiliations, there’s a decision of ‘I’m not going to let this happen any more, I’m going to up my game.’” He adds that the mindset reminded him of his experiences at school in Montreal. “I felt like that and tried that as a kid, when I was like, ‘I don’t want to be the one who gets rejected any more.’ It would work for two weeks, and then it wouldn’t. And it was like, ‘What can I do to have friends?’”
Before shooting the film, Russell took Pellerin to some celebrity parties in LA, which bizarrely included Paris Hilton’s birthday party. Pellerin filmed what was unfolding on a handheld camcorder, and no one batted an eye. “Everyone’s already recording stuff on their phone,” says Russell. “In a way, someone with a camcorder is more wholesome.”
The Lurker set sounds something like a party in itself, where Russell’s friends in the LA music scene would drop by to hang out with the crew. “Every day he was having the best day of his life,” says Madekwe. “But it was really useful because that’s not my world at all.” Plus it allowed Pellerin, who grew up speaking French and only learned English at 18, to master the scene’s vernacular. “It’s not my world at all, so on set I’d be trying it out” – he flips into the slurred voice of a SoCal stoner – “That’s crazy, bruh.”
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’s career history likely has something to do with the film’s arch view of celebrity. Oliver’s music sounds like the kind of frictionless fare of a “beats to study to” playlist, and he seems to view Matthew as a kind of musical sensei based on his knowledge of Nile Rodgers … the most famous funk musician in history. I’m curious if Russell has heard of any real-life instances of the blackmail that his movie depicts. There’s a long pause before the director nods yes. He won’t name names, but he says that he’s “heard of this kind of thing happening”.
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’re game to lean into the movie’s popcorn pleasures, and tomorrow the trio will fly to LA for a live reading of Single White Female, which Madekwe cheerfully admits he hasn’t seen in full: “I started watching it in my hotel, I’m 40 minutes in!” While Russell’s movie hits similar pleasure centres to its 90s forebears – including the sexual tension between its leads – 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. “The worst!” he agrees. “At every step, I was trying to run as far away from that as I could.”
That fear didn’t 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. “I was like, ‘How you doing?’” recalls Madekwe. “And you were crying.”
“I wasn’t crying,” laughs Russell, “but tears were welling up – tears of relief. Once I saw the two of them on the monitor I knew the tapestry of the whole thing would work.”
