Don’t meet your heroes (at the risk of disappointment, disillusionment, or, in some cases, disaster). A twist of this adage applies to celebrities as well: Don’t meet your fans, and whatever you do, never give them a backstage pass.

British mid-level pop star Oliver (Saltburn’s Archie Madekwe) could use this advice. He has surrounded himself with fawning flunkies, two of whom do little more than play video games in his Hollywood Hills split-level home and give the side-eye to newcomers. Oliver’s latest sycophant is gawky and lanky Matt Toth (Théodore Pellerin). After the Melrose Avenue clothing store clerk spots and recognizes the baby-faced Oliver walking in, Matt instantly switches the shop’s sound system to an old-school R&B ballad. The choice impresses Oliver, who immediately warms to Matt’s musical tastes. Within a minute, he glibly asks if Matt has a camera to make a documentary about him—Matt happens to own an outdated camcorder. (Strange though, that Oliver, living in Los Angeles, doesn’t already know an aspiring filmmaker.) This is no idle banter. For his gig that night, he hands Matt the magic ticket: a backstage pass.

In his early twenties, preppy Matt appears unassuming, socially awkward, and more than a little gobsmacked. Yet he wins Oliver’s approval in a backstage challenge that resembles a hazing ritual. He’s invites to join the entourage, but he first must drop trou like everyone else before taking a seat—not your typical green room greeting. Matt figures out another way to fit into the hierarchy. While the other hangers-on loaf around, he plays mother: tidying up, doing the dishes, and essentially running the household. Oliver expects honest feedback about his music from Matt, but what he receives, without complaint, are affirmations.

Matt, however, faces stiff competition for the star’s attention, from a soft-spoken filmmaker with high-tech equipment to, later, his former coworker Jamie (Sunny Suljic). There’s no mystery to Matt’s behavior. Much of what he says and does has been premeditated. Even at their first meeting, when he claims he didn’t realize Oliver was famous, he already has the singer’s merch tucked away in his closet. He knows Oliver’s influences, down to the musical genres that shaped him.

Refreshingly for a movie centered on the music industry, the original synth-heavy score by Kenneth “Kenny Beats” Blume feels like credible contemporary pop. The soundtrack is rounded out with older songs, such as Nile Rodgers’s “This Is My Love Song for You.” But one choice comes across as too on-the-nose—the montage of Matt dutifully cleaning Oliver’s house to “I’m Your Puppet.”

Shot on lo-frills 16mm and mostly handheld, the LA bottom-feeding milieu oozes with realism that is often at odds with an overly calculated screenplay. The situational drama traps the characters with little wiggle room, limiting what they can do—and you have to suspend disbelief. For a signed artist, Oliver receives no input from his label and has no publicist managing his image. Meanwhile, Matt becomes a rising Instagram personality simply by being a groupie—or, as Jennifer Lopez put it in the 1990s, “hot by association.” The script also doesn’t go all the way with its implications of a codependent bond that turns parasitic. Writer/director Alex Russell seems intent on maintaining ambiguity regarding Matt’s schemes to become the No. 1 Man Friday. The result, though, is tame and not unexpected. The storyline doesn’t go all the way with, or near to, what it suggests. 

Making the scenario more credible, Oliver’s manager, Shai, doubles as the audience’s surrogate by seeing through Matt’s aw-shucks act long before anyone else does (though not the viewers). As played by Havana Rose Liu, Shai has seen countless Matts come and go; compared with Oliver’s cocky clique, she’s the genius in the room. (Hearing her blow off someone is a masterclass in casual workplace-ese.)

If the premise reminds you of another backstage tale of ambition, you’re not alone. Lurker echoes a sentiment from All About Eve: If one scheming admirer falls away, another is always ready to take their place.