Fandom is a humorous factor within the age of social media. Spend sufficient time scrolling and it’s straightforward to really feel such as you actually know a star, and all their buddies. The brand new movie “Lurker,” a Sundance breakout in theaters Friday, explores the query of what may occur if a sure sort of fan bought a foot within the door, and what they could do to remain there.
Archie Madekwe’s Oliver hardly is aware of what’s coming when he walks into a stylish Los Angeles clothes store. A rising music star, Oliver appears already accustomed to a specific amount of consideration wherever he goes, with asks for selfies and autographs simply a part of the deal. So after all he’s shocked when one of many workers, Théodore Pellerin’s Matthew, doesn’t appear to know or care who he’s. Oliver doesn’t see that it’s an act and is quickly asking this stranger to come back round and grasp together with his entourage.
“At the beginning Matthew thinks Oliver has this god-given place of celebrity and success,” Pellerin mentioned. “He quickly understands that he will have to give things to serve a certain purpose in Oliver’s world and his ego. But also that they’re not dissimilar. They’re both playing by a certain rule book that is written by Oliver. If the power becomes Matthew’s, he can also write the rules.”
A scorching script and a first-time filmmaker
The movie is the directorial debut of Alex Russell, whose personal star is rising. He wrote “Forks,” extensively thought of among the finest episodes of “The Bear,” and gained an Emmy for co-executive producing the Netflix sequence “Beef.” His script for “Lurker,” which he wrote type of as a problem for himself throughout COVID lockdowns, instantly grew to become a scorching commodity. Madekwe remembers being bummed when he didn’t hear again after he put himself on tape to play the hanger-on.
A number of years later, Madekwe’s agent known as and mentioned Russell wished to satisfy him. Not for Matthew, however for Oliver.
“I had to completely rethink the film and the structure and the what it was about,” Madekwe mentioned. “But it was most daunting to imagine myself needing to go and meet Alex and convince him that I could play somebody like this cool character.”
He needn’t have been so apprehensive. Unbeknownst to Madekwe, Russell had been doing a little stealth behind-the-scenes work. After somebody advisable his identify, Russell noticed Madekwe in a espresso store at some point and simply watched him for 20 minutes. His conclusion: That is Oliver.
A charmed manufacturing of younger creatives
Russell was cognizant of the constraints he was confronted with as a first-time director making an impartial movie, the place issues like casting and hiring are sometimes rushed.
“My goal was to get what I felt like were underrated actors,” Russell mentioned. “People who could come in and really hit it out of the park. Then people would look at this movie and be like wow they really took a step up here. That’s kind of where you can punch above your weight if you’re making your first movie and don’t have a huge budget.”
It wasn’t simply his leads both, however the full ensemble together with Sunny Suljic, Havana Rose Liu, Zack Fox and Daniel Zolghadri — faces you may acknowledge, however names you may not but know. Placing it collectively was exhausting work, with strict limits on funds and time, however Russell mentioned the expertise of “Lurker” was charmed nonetheless.
“It’s only because I got so lucky with decisions I made early on with casting and hiring,” he mentioned. “So much of it is like I’m just a kid with a screenplay and everyone else has to be really good at their job.”
When it got here to directing the actors, he had a easy litmus take a look at: “Do I consider it?
“You’re watching the monitor and like do I buy that? Because everyone else is going to have to,” he mentioned. “I just think my cast was very good. I didn’t have to force any performance.”
Usually instances Russell’s buddies within the music world would come round set, giving the off digital camera instances a little bit of a meta high quality.
“It didn’t feel a little like the movie sometimes, like just like a group of like young creatives,” Pellerin mentioned. “There was a real LA film and music scene that was very present. That was helpful for me — it was like the fun aspect of the movie, not the hard-core humiliation.”
Many concerned describe the method as uniquely collaborative. Madekwe additionally stepped up as a producer, which wasn’t only a vainness title. He was truly concerned in lots of main inventive selections, together with recommending Suljic, who he’d simply labored with on a music video, and discovering areas and a number of the music for the movie, together with a music known as “Love and Obsession,” written by Rex Orange County.
An obsessive thriller for the parasocial age
“It’s an incredibly important film for now,” Madekwe mentioned. “The relationship that we have with people that we don’t know? I think that conversation is really interesting and exciting. But most importantly, I think it’s really exciting to be at the beginning of Alex Russell’s career and to invest into a filmmaker that I think is gonna be making incredible films for a very long time.”
The movie shares some DNA with what Russell calls “obsessive thrillers” like “Whiplash” and “Black Swan.” In “Lurker,” he puzzled “what if the drumming was social climbing.”
The ability shifting energy dynamics between Matthew and Oliver aren’t simply related to celebrities and hangers on. It may apply to any group of buddies.
As Russell defined: “You get a text from your new shiny friend and a text from your old friend: Who do you text back first?”
