"I want the same as everyone else. I just want it more," someone says here in the third act. These days, for young people, the heartfelt desire is often no longer to become a star as an artist. Being famous, becoming an influencer, or gaining influence within an entourage - that is the new grail.
Matthew works at a trendy boutique. There, he meets the popular musician Oliver. Using a trick, he manages to catch Oliver's attention and earn his respect. (Tellingly, the film leaves open whether Matthew even likes Oliver's music.)
He is invited backstage to Oliver's concert, but is left confused by Oliver's erratic behavior: sometimes affable and jovial, sometimes distant and dismissive. Still, Matthew manages to tag along with the clique and eventually gains access to Oliver's "crib"-where a small court of crew, assistants, and musicians surrounds the star.
Matthew's resourcefulness and cunning, both here and later, are almost uncomfortably compelling to watch. Oliver's manager, Shai, eyes the schemer with suspicion. But for Oliver (who may crave affirmation as much as our protagonist) and his fellow musicians, Matthew soon becomes indispensable - the whisperer who turns into a supposed talisman.
Yet just as he outmaneuvers most of the others in Oliver's entourage, Matthew's former boutique colleague soon enough pushes into the picture. As this colleague's talents rise and he threatens to become the next golden boy, the carousel of ambition, envy, and resentment spins out of control.
Maybe it's a prerequisite for artists to believe their own hype. When flatterers and hangers-on start to believe it too, things get tragic - or, as in this cleverly staged drama, bizarre.
A directorial debut, by the way!
Special praise goes to the nervous, simmering energy that lead actor Théodore Pellerin brings to the screen, as well as the skillfully constructed story by writer-director Alex Russell.
