[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

OBSESSION, BLACKMAIL AND INSTAGRAM: INSIDE LURKER, THE YEAR’S MOST
COMPELLING THRILLER  
[[link removed]]


 

Owen Myers
August 22, 2025
The Guardian
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ The Talented Mr Ripley gets an upgrade in a buzzy and biting film
about a desperate outsider who infiltrates the inner circle of a
singer on the rise _

Alex Russell, Archie Madekwe and Theodore Pellerin. , Photograph:
Matt Licari/Invision/AP

 

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
[[link removed]].
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”.

[Archie Madekwe in Lurker.]View image in fullscreen

Archie Madekwe in Lurker. Photograph: AP

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.”

*
Lurker is out in US cinemas now and in the UK and Australia soon

* The Lurker
[[link removed]]
* Los Angeles
[[link removed]]
* fame
[[link removed]]
* social media
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]