Backstage is a 2005 French psychological drama film directed by Emmanuelle Bercot and co-written by Bercot and Jérôme Tonnerre.
17 year old Lucie (Isild Le Besco) is an ordinary teenager and an obsessive fan of popular singer Lauren Waks (Emmanuelle Seigner). One day, Lucie's destiny leads her to enter the life of her idol. Gradually, their lives intertwine as, with near-operatic intensity, the film delves into the emotional dependency on both sides of celebrity culture.
Not to be confused with the Canadian series Backstage.
Backstage provides examples of the following tropes:
- Afraid of Blood: Lauren is grossed out at the sight of Lucie's nosebleed dirtying her hotel room's bathroom.
- Bathtub Scene: At one point, in a moment of high stress because of her sudden inability to perform, Lauren takes a bath and lets Lucie in. She cries and lets herself sink, which prompts Lucie to lift her torso out of the water and hug her (a Bathtub Bonding of sorts).
- Celeb Crush: Lucie straddles the line between being a very obsessive fan and being in love with Lauren ("It disgusts me that she has a man. She is pure."). She veers more towards the latter in the end.
- Celebrity Is Overrated: Deep down, Lauren isn't happy the slightest as Lucie finds out.
- Censor Suds: In the Bathtub Scene, a nipple of Lauren is visible throughout while the other is always hidden by suds.
- Control Freak: As Lucie's Sanity Slippage goes, she increasingly feels the need to control Lauren's love life, going so far as interrupting Lauren and the man she was about to have sex with at a party.
- Digital Bikini: The film's American poster added a bra to Lauren's body. She's bare-breasted on the original French poster.
- Disappeared Dad: Lucie's father died in a car accident.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Emmanuelle Seigner actually learned to sing for the role of Lauren to perform her songs herself, thus launching her own singing career.
- Entitled to Have You: At the worst stages of Lucie's Sanity Slippage, her Celeb Crush on Lauren has her behaving as if Lauren belongs to her and her only.
- Expy: Lauren's character was conceived with inspirations such as Mylène Farmer, Debbie Harry and Marilyn Monroe.
- Foreign Language Title: The film is French, and uses the English word "backstage" as title.
- Going Commando: Lauren is always braless.
- Loony Fan:
- It's an understatement to say that Lucie is obsessed with Lauren beyond reasonable. Having been too overwhelmed by emotion to talk to her when she came at her own home, she does everything to meet her again afterwards. Surprisingly, Lauren doesn't mind her staying at her hotel room for no reason (probably because she isn't the same unhinged kind as the loud ones who camp outside the hotel, at least initially), even allowing her in her bathroom as she's naked in a bath. Lauren's manager even ponders if she doesn't find something reassuring in Lucie, who also gradually gets to see how unhappy Lauren is, connecting with her on a level most fans can't. But then Lucie's Celeb Crush progressively takes over, going so far as having her want to control Lauren's love life.
- Lauren mentions at one point that a group of fans stayed under her hotel room's windows shouting until 4 am.
- The mob of fans coming for Lorraine in the last third of the film is also pretty unhinged, with one jealous fan spitting on the window of the car Lucie and Lauren are in, aiming it at Lucie.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Lucie's Loony Fan Celeb Crush makes her lose her sanity.
- "Meet the Celebrity" Contest: At the beginning, a TV channel makes a surprise for Lucie and arranges for Lauren to perform at her own home. She falls in tears under the emotion, Lauren gives her a hug, and when the performance is over, she locks herself in her room instead of staying for the cameras. Only when Lauren leaves does Lucie try to run after her.
- Mood-Swinger: The increasingly unhappy Lauren can change mood quite abruptly, from taking Lucie as a quasi-confidant to rejecting her and letting her come by her side again and having a Sleep Cute moment with her head on Lucie's shoulder. Though Lucie's own Sanity Slippage doesn't help either.
- Nosebleed: After meeting Lauren the second time at the hotel in Paris, Lucie bleeds from the nose, likely due to the overwhelming emotion meeting her idol causes to her.
- One-Woman Song: Lauren makes Lucie the subject of a song at the end, which plays over the end credits.
- Promoted Fangirl: Lucie is an obsessive fan of Lauren, and Lauren simply doesn't mind her presence around her, even making her an employee and confidant. And she ends up in an affair with Lauren's most prominent ex-boyfriend Daniel.
- Prone to Tears: At the beginning, the closer Lucie is to Lauren, the more likely she'll cry under the heavy emotional stress her obsession with Lauren gives her.
- Sanity Slippage: Lucie wasn't all that rational about her passion for Lauren and her songs to begin with, but her obsession morphing into Celeb Crush only gets worse over time.
- Self-Harm: Lucie goes as far as scarring herself on the chest, at the same place where Lauren has a scar.
- Skyward Scream: Lucie lets a scream towards the sky out when getting out of the hotel after meeting Lauren for the second time.
- Spiteful Spit: In the scene with the unhinged mob of fans, a particularly jealous one spits at the window of the car Lucie stands behind.
- Stalker with a Crush: Lucie is a weird example in that her stalking is accepted by Lauren for most of the film, though at times she also calls her out on it.
- Tagline: "Adored by millions. Possessed by one."
- You're Not My Father: Lauren publicly claims that her father has died, but he's actually alive, she simply doesn't want to see him.
