Reviewed on 28th January at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival
Cast: Théodore Pellerin, Archie Madekwe
Genre: Crime, Drama, Music, Thriller
Director: Alex Russell
In Irish Cinemas: 11th December 2025
There’s a striking confidence running through Alex Russell’s attention-hungry thriller Lurker, a Sundance breakout that feels unusually self-aware for a debut. Many first-time narrative features this year have fallen victim to the same ailment: a desperate insistence on doing everything in the same style, with the same concept, and the same noise, yet revealing how little they can execute with absolute control.
Russell, whose TV work includes Beef and The Bear, enters the arena as a rare newcomer who knows precisely when to pull back. While others overextend, he trims. While others shout, he speaks in a measured tone. The result is a film that’s deceptively straightforward but radiates self-assurance. It’s a contemporary, pop-culture soaked take on the obsessive interloper thriller, a genre that had its heyday in the 90s with Single White Female and The Talented Mr Ripley, later evolving into the satirical territory of something like Ingrid Goes West. Russell borrows the framework but strips away much of the genre’s usual exaggeration, grounding it in dialogue that sounds lived-in and tension that doesn’t rely on body counts.
Our titular lurker is Matthew (Théodore Pellerin), a listless retail worker who worms his way into the orbit of rising musician Oliver (Archie Madekwe, fresh off Saltburn). Matthew presents himself as anything but a fan, yet clearly hungers for proximity. Living with his grandmother, without a social life to speak of, he claws forward through menial tasks and thinly veiled disdain from Oliver’s crew of frat-adjacent hangers-on. Most people would retreat long before he does. Matthew refuses. His persistence lands him an unofficial role as Oliver’s documentarian, allowing Russell to weave in multiple video textures without ever overplaying the gimmick. And blessedly, he resists drowning the film in phone screens and social feeds, a rare restraint in a story centred on young people.
But Matthew is no Ingrid or Tom Ripley, no charismatic oddity or misunderstood tragic figure. He’s repellent, a leech in plain sight. Pellerin nails the quiet wrongness of a person who lingers too long, talks a beat too late, and carries the social presence of a cold draft. Even Matthew’s sweetest moment, a dance with his grandmother, is immediately soured when he snaps at her for interrupting a phone call. But Lurker doesn’t settle for the predictable arc of an outcast welcomed, then cast aside. Russell digs deeper, asking what someone like Matthew would actually need to do to impress, manipulate, or ultimately dominate someone as fragile and capricious as Oliver. In a world allergic to honest confrontation, what happens when a boundaryless outsider becomes the only one willing to give hard truths? Could Matthew be exactly the parasite Oliver has been waiting for? And what would that imply about fame itself?
Russell’s questions are light, even playful. This isn’t a manifesto, but his focus on character over commentary gives the film an unexpected bite. It’s also refreshing to see a pop-culture story that doesn’t lean on the tiresome game of pointing at real-world references for easy recognition. Instead, Russell builds a plausible ecosystem of his own, with original music by Kenny Beats that feels entirely authentic. As Matthew’s façade erodes, Lurker slides into a wonderfully grimy tension, sweaty-palmed but never hysterical. The young cast delivers across the board: Madekwe captures the slippery charisma of someone used to being worshipped but impossible to read, while Havana Rose Liu stands out as an assistant torn between compassion and dread.
Though Lurker presents an array of easy targets in the entertainment industry, influencer culture, and celebrity psychology, Russell consistently sidesteps the low-hanging fruit. His cynicism is earned, but his interest is ultimately more personal and more unnerving than a takedown of Hollywood. The film’s final whisper lingers: fame or not, there are lurkers in every corner of life.
Overall: 7/10
Movie Reviewer
