LFF 2025: Lurker **

Image: The Wrap

Lurker follows Matthew (Theodore Pellerin), a young photographer working a monotonous retail job who experiences any fan's fantasy: rising pop artist Oliver (Archie Madekwe) walks into his place of work and invites him to hang out back stage on tour, under the pretence of wanting to see his creative visual work. To the chagrin of Oliver's crew, including musician and comedian Zack Fox, Matthew begins to fit in: he helps on photoshoots and music videos, his creative ideas are taken onboard, and he builds a name for himself on social media as a key player in the fickle Oliver's career. Unbeknownst - yet treated with appropriate suspicion nonetheless - to the others, Matthew develops a deep obsession with Oliver, and sees his friendship and status as a position from which he should eliminate competition.

The performances are all competent - Pellerin is appropriately creepy, and Madekwe plays into Oliver's obtuseness and entitlement that all too commonly accompanies famous people. However, the strongest performances come in the form of the supporting cast: Havana Rose-Liu and Sunny Suljic, both rather underutilised, add an important element of humanity and groundedness that is much needed in this story. However, in spite of its performances, the finished product is nonetheless a disappointing one. What results is an unfortunately very surface level, fairly empty film about obsession and fame. The characters are more like archetypes; they do nothing interesting or worthy of analysis or second thought, they only serve the purpose of pushing the plot forward - and how agonisingly so.

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

I can easily see a gender gap in like-to-dislike ratio growing once this hits general release. This is a very "straight male" film: men (in a general sense) simply do not face the existential dread of being obsessed over, to the point of being in physical danger, or the possibility being prominent enough to look over their shoulders. It's treated like a novelty, something that only really happens in exceptional circumstances, in this case being a public figure. The most awful thing the writer could imagine happening in a film about an obsessed fan was a man being recorded having sex with minors and the tape being used as a bargaining chip.

So many potential discussion points are skimmed over in favour of spending more time with the personality-less protagonist and the equally vacuous object of his desire (you could argue he is more of a means to an end), with no interest in the supporting cast, who did what they could with their paper-thin material. Even as the dynamics shift throughout the film there is little to no consequence. The protagonist is later forgiven for something as dramatic as blackmail simply because he's good at filming a music video.

There are plenty of better films about obsession out there (including man on man obsession, before you jump down my throat). Go watch those instead.