Everyone who works in the entertainment industry knows someone like this, a person who can best be described as “someone who would step over their dead grandmother to get next to a celebrity.”
In the new film Lurker written and directed by Alex Russell, Matthew/Matty (portrayed by Théodore Pellerin) is that person—and ironically he lives with his grandmother, who’s not dead– yet.
Matty works at a trendy clothing store on LA’s Melrose Avenue and one day when up-and-coming rapper Oliver comes into the store, the sales clerk somehow weasels his way into the celebrity’s orbit and gets invited to see him perform.
Ollie (brought to life by Archie Madekwe) has a crew of people already around him who live together in a sprawling hillside house. There’s only one woman involved, his manager Shai, and she and the rest of the guys see right through Matty’s obsequious behavior.
Matty has some knowledgeability about cameras and tries to pass himself off as a videographer who wants to make a documentary about Ollie, but there is already one in the crew who tries to end-run the effort to supplant him.
Again, the stepping over your dead grandmother bit.
Somehow Matty lucks into capturing some videos and still photos that please Ollie, who’s mostly concerned about his next performances on his tour and cutting a new album in the studio.
The little we see of Ollie performing in front of enthusiastic crowds, we conclude that he does have a lot of talent and does not appear to be a diva-like rock star. Okay, he’s not only not a jerk but seems to be a pretty decent sort with a very short attention span.
Matty is at his beck and call and loving every minute of it – until, his boss at the clothing store somehow also weasels his way into this crowd but actually has some talent– in designing and making clothing.
You can see Matty’s raging jealousy and plotting to remove this rival for Ollie’s attention. And that’s when the movie turns into what its writer and director calls a horror film.
After a packed screening in Los Angeles, Russell and Zack Fox, who plays Swettand is an AP on the film, talked about the making of Lurker and the meaning behind some of the scenes.
“This guy is fucked up,” said Fox, who first read Russell’s script during the pandemic. “We all know somebody like this. Diddy IS Matthew. He attached himself to celebrities and had footage of them [to blackmail them.]”
Oops, we just revealed a major plot point of the film. Yes, Matty obtains material to blackmail Ollie and gets the upper hand in the relationship—more than he had ever envisioned.
“The reason I didn’t show a sad Matthew life as a backstory is so this could be a normal person,” Russell said. “He’s listening and learning in the environment to get closer and thinking if he doesn’t do it well, it will all be over if he doesn’t make himself useful. And then he goes the route of blackmail.”
One scene shows the two men wrestling with Matty laughing hysterically in kind of a tragicomic way, leaving the viewer to wonder how the scene is going to end. Two possibilities: in violence or sex.
We are not going to say.
But another unspoken element in the film is the examination of male friendship and the hierarchy of a group in which the alpha has emerged, controlling all the others around him as celestial bodies.
Russell notes that his movie dances around the word “gay,” but that male intimacy can be homoerotic.
