Fame can feel like a warm light and a cold blade at the same time. You step a little closer, and the brightness flatters the skin. Step closer still, and it starts to sting. In the world we are living through right now, so much of that light feels reserved for a tiny circle of people. Followers and streams and the constant churn of content make the circle look open, but it often is not. Plenty of us stand on the edges and squint in, longing to be noticed. That longing eats at people. It turns charm into strategy and turns kindness into a currency you trade for proximity. Lurker is about that itch. It is about the people who spend their lives just outside the velvet rope and what they will do to squeeze through it. The movie watches that hunger with a clear eye and a steady pulse, until you realize your hands have been clenched the whole time.
Alex Russell has made a thriller that slides under your skin. It is not loud, exactly. It is relentless. He understands the allure of being near a famous person and the ugly little games that swirl around that gravity. There is a whole ecosystem around any artist with a little clout. Friends who swear they were there before the first single broke through. Videographers capturing every studio session and impromptu freestyle. Managers keeping schedules tight. Party people who just happen to be helpful when it is time to move from the club to a private afters. Everyone has a role, a reason, a story. Also a need. Russell drills into that pressure with a steady hand. The result feels like a cousin to Nightcrawler, except the hustle here is clout itself.
Our guide through this world is Matthew, played by Théodore Pellerin with a smile that never quite reaches his eyes. When we meet him, he is working at a boutique in Los Angeles. It is one of those rooms that smells expensive, where every shirt is folded like a piece of art. A young star strolls through with fans orbiting him for selfies. Matthew watches. He is calm. He moves to the sound system, taps on a playlist, and lets a Nile Rodgers track glide across the floor. The star hears it and perks up. Taste recognizes taste. Soon they are talking. The star is Oliver, a singer on the rise. He invites Matthew to his show that night. He says he needs a real person there. The invitation feels spontaneous, even kind. It is also a perfect mark for Matthew. Because the song was not an accident. He picked it carefully after studying Oliver online. He has been doing his homework for a while.
That is the first hint of Matthew’s design. He does not crash into worlds. He slips in. The man knows he is not the loudest or the flashiest person at any party. He turns that into a weapon. He makes listening look like intimacy. He flatters taste as if he is not flattering at all. In a culture that rewards big gestures and bigger brands, he sells the illusion of authenticity. It works, which is its own kind of horror. Oliver responds to it. He is played by Archie Madekwe with easy charisma and a little tremble around the edges. He is handsome and gifted and surrounded by noise. He wants to be taken seriously as an artist. He wants to be loved. He is also smart enough to know that certain kinds of people are attracted to his light for reasons that have nothing to do with his music. He knows it and feeds on it anyway. His comment about needing a real person sounds like a joke, then like a plea. He sees something in Matthew that looks like sanctuary. He does not see the trap until it starts to close.
Once Matthew edges closer to Oliver’s life, the politics of the inner circle come into focus. Every entourage is a fortress. Gaining entry requires more than charm and shared playlists. There is a videographer who quietly catches everything and whose camera is also a shield. There is Swett, Oliver’s best friend, whose protective instincts are as sharp as his wit. They clock Matthew immediately. They understand the cost of letting strangers get close to a rising star. It is not just the risk of theft or leaks or bad press. It is the threat of losing their own place. Matthew sees them too. He reads the field and adjusts. He offers to run errands. He washes dishes at a house that becomes a clubhouse for the team. He pitches in, unobtrusive, smiling. Any time there is a small problem to solve, Matthew appears with a solution. Russell lets us see that some of those problems were set up by Matthew in the first place, just so he could knock them down.
These steps happen quietly. You can almost feel the air move as Matthew shifts from a helpful stranger to a familiar presence in the room. It is unnerving because it rings true. In an industry built on image management, competence can be potent bait. Be useful. That phrase hangs over the movie like a mantra. Matthew embraces it. He studies what Oliver needs and slips into the gaps. Half assistant, half confidant, occasionally a jester. He laughs at the right lines and falls silent at the right pauses. He also listens when Oliver talks about his work and his fears and what it means to be looked at all the time. That is not a con in a simple sense. It is its own sincere hunger. Matthew wants all that closeness for himself. To be near someone who is seen by everyone else. To be seen through them. The movie never lets him off the hook for this. It also does not lie about how effective the method can be.
You can feel Russell’s time in television sharpen his instincts here. His work on shows that dig into creative scenes gives him a map of how artistic circles function day to day. It is not just the fame. It is the practice. The routines that surround a studio session, the etiquette of dropping in on a rehearsal, the people whose job is to keep the vibe right while also wrangling timing and gear and food and privacy. Lurker pays attention to that texture without turning into a manual. It uses the details of this life to frame the slow burn of Matthew’s infiltration and Oliver’s need for validation. The closer they draw to each other, the more slippery their dynamic becomes.
Pat Scola’s camera does something shrewd and merciless. He shoots with grain and gives the nights a soft darkness that flatters and exposes at once. Pellerin’s face becomes a study in angles. A narrow jaw. Eyes that gleam with pleasure when a plan lands. Lips that flatten when he is recalculating. The camera often lingers on Matthew when the conversation has moved to someone else. We are invited to watch him listening, to track the little nods and stillness and the way he positions his shoulders to signal usefulness without need. You can feel gears turning. In brighter scenes the world looks gilded and inviting, but the corners keep their shadows. There is always another watcher at the edge of the frame. Sometimes that is the videographer. Sometimes it is us.
Movies about obsession can be blunt. Lurker is sharp. It understands the type of person who has learned how to mimic depth. Matthew does not seem to have a private life. No close friends. No true taste of his own beyond what reflects best on the people he wants to captivate. He does not long to make something. He longs for proof that he matters. Social media becomes the altar for this quiet religion. The film shows a cluster of follow notifications blinking on a screen as Matthew drifts toward sleep. It is a small image and a little funny. It is also bleak. Those pings are his lullaby. Attention is his food. The movie nods to other portraits of hunger like this. It belongs on a shelf near Nightcrawler and Ingrid Goes West. But it refuses to be a copy. Russell is gentler in tone and just as cruel in his moral math.
Oliver is not a fool. That is important. He may be needy, but he is not blind. He recognizes the pattern of people smelling opportunity around him. He invites it and pushes it away and kisses it on the cheek and then scolds it for getting too close. He wants to make music with soul, not just songs that perform. He also cannot deny how good it feels to be adored. Madekwe threads this needle beautifully. He gives Oliver a playful sarcasm that can turn sharp without warning. When he jokes with Matthew, there is a dance there. A flirt. Something curious and charged and not quite named. They circle each other with a heat that might be romance and might be a shared intoxication with power. The movie keeps that ambiguous on purpose. The possibility that they are in love makes their bond feel dangerous in one way. The possibility that they only love what the other gives them makes it dangerous in another.
Their scenes together hum. Sometimes the charge is tender. Sometimes it is mean. There are little tests and quiet dares. Who will admit need first. Who will flinch. Matthew often looks like he might melt when Oliver gives him attention. He also looks proud when he gets Oliver to perform better, more honest, more raw. Oliver seems to know that Matthew is playing a game and chooses to keep playing anyway. That choice is part vanity and part self preservation. You could call that codependence. The movie understands it more as a feedback loop. Attention creates value. Value brings more attention. Around and around.
As the story tightens its coil, the stakes rise. This is the space where thrillers sometimes sprint into violence to goose the audience. Russell resists that for the most part. He keeps the volume at a simmer. Even so, some late turns stretch the delicate balance he has kept. There are moments when the script tips toward neatness. A big single that the team is circling for the end of a record spells out a theme just a little too clearly. A lyric about love and obsession nods at what we have been watching all along, then winks. It is not a mortal sin. You can feel the movie yearning to underline its ideas just when it least needs to. A minor slip.
What matters is that the final stretch corrects course with a stomach dropping calm. The last movement of the film is not a scream. It is a soft click as pieces slide into place. A reminder that getting used and getting hurt does not stop a person from coming back for more. Fame is the magnet. Being perceived is the drug. There is a moment near the end where you sense every person in the room has made peace with a little piece of their soul being on the table. The price of staying close is small in the moment and massive in aggregate. The feeling this leaves behind is sticky. You carry it out of the theater.
There is a bigger cultural ache humming underneath all this. Lurker is built on a key paradox. We live in an era obsessed with authenticity. We also measure worth by visible metrics. Followers. Views. Tickets sold. Streams. Sound bites. The rules of that game twist intimacy into performance. Being friends with someone who is watched by millions changes the pressure on everything you say to them and every kindness you give. It also warps the way you see yourself. Are you standing next to them because you love who they are or because you love what it says about you that they love you back. The movie stares down that question without letting anyone off easy. It shows how tempting it is to rationalize bad behavior when the payoff feels like access. It shows how quickly those rationalizations become habits. And how easy it is to mistake proximity for purpose.
The performances are the reason this works as well as it does. Pellerin is magnetic without being showy. His Matthew is a study in control. When he flutters his gaze across a room, you believe he is mapping every possible leverage point. When he drops his voice to something gentle, you feel him stalking softness. There are flashes of something like joy in him. They are scary. They make you feel complicit for wanting him to win in the moment. Madekwe gives Oliver layers that keep flipping over like cards on a table. He can be sweet with a late night sense of humor and then a second later pull rank as the star. He can mock and then confess. He can pretend not to notice the way Matthew hovers, then draw him close when the rest of the crowd gets loud. Their push and pull keeps the film alive.
The supporting players do exactly what great supporting players should do. Daniel Zolghadri’s videographer is watchful. He records and judges at the same time. In a story about being seen, he is both mirror and lens. His quiet skepticism keeps the air tense. Zack Fox as Swett brings a crackle that lights up scenes that might otherwise float away on vibes. He loves Oliver but is not blinded by him. He sees Matthew clearly and says so, sometimes out loud and sometimes with a look that could shatter glass. When he jokes, it cuts. When he threatens, it is because the threat is real. With these two at the edges, the film feels grounded. They make Oliver’s circle feel like an actual group with history, not just a collection of types.
On the formal side, the movie understands the rhythm of modern fame. Phones are always present, not as a gimmick but as an extension of attention itself. The glare of a live story screen lights up a face in the backseat of a car. A studio session hums along with coffee cups, laptops open, small speakers up too loud. The city outside looks both ordinary and gilded. Late night drives with friends feel special because the people in the car are special, not because the street is. Lurker captures that vibe without turning into a montage machine. It lets scenes breathe. It trusts silence. It uses a pop song at just the right moment, not to tell you how to feel but to show you the echo chamber these characters live inside.
There is also a quiet elegance in the way the film uses space. A high ceiling kitchen becomes a stage for small acts of dominance and surrender. A bedroom turns sacred when a secret is shared there, then loses that glow when someone new walks in. Backstage hallways look identical no matter the venue, which lends a sense of drifting in circles even as Oliver’s star rises. These choices build a feeling that the characters are moving fast and going nowhere. That is not a flaw. It is the point.
If you come to Lurker for big twists, you might be surprised at how steady it is. The thrills here come from recognition. From watching someone say the right soothing word at exactly the right time and realizing they learned it for moments like this. From catching a flash of pride in a person who insists they do not care about credit and then watching them make sure they get tagged anyway. This is a movie that trusts the audience to recognize the choreography of social hunger and to feel a little sick at how well practiced it is.
When the credits roll, you may find yourself thinking about the question the film keeps slipping into your pocket. Who needs who. Does Matthew need Oliver to be whole, or does Oliver need Matthew to feel real. The answer shifts depending on the scene. That is part of the trap. Need is never clean in this world. It is messy and transactional and sometimes lovely. The film refuses to say that one simply corrupted the other. It approaches their bond like a knot you cannot untie but also cannot ignore. You tug at it anyway.
There will be arguments about the late turns and whether they push the story a bit too neatly toward a thesis. Fair. The themes are loud enough without anyone singing them. But even when the script announces itself, the direction stays cool and the acting keeps the tension vibrating. The final image is not a shock. It is a verdict. Not on these two men alone, but on the whole idea that being seen can redeem anything. It cannot. It only magnifies what is already there.
Lurker is not a cautionary tale in the finger wagging sense. It is a mirror. It holds up the urge to be near power and asks what you are willing to trade for it. It wonders if love can survive when every moment is also content. It pokes gently at the difference between being known and being recognized. It lives in the gray areas where attention can feel like affection and usefulness can feel like devotion. That is why it gets under your skin. That is why it lingers.
By the time you walk out, the lights of whatever city you are in will look different. They will glow the same way. But you might notice the shadows a little more. You might think about the last time you did something kind for someone and then checked your phone to see if anyone saw you do it. You might remember that fame is not a single bright spotlight shining down from the sky. It is a thousand tiny flashbulbs going off all at once, reflected in a thousand hungry eyes. The movie understands that. It does not scold you for wanting the light. It just makes sure you also feel the heat.
