Review of Catfish (2010) by Emma E — 30 Jan 2013

Critics and viewers alike are suggesting the subject of this film is reality itself. One reviewer here suggests the creators take you on a "Lynchian journey of self perception." I don't think it's anywhere near that sophisticated.

My impression is this: three tech-savvy hipsters from Manhattan found Angela online, realised pretty quickly that she and her alter-egos were fabrications, and decided to make a documentary about it, pretending to be duped for a few months before flying to Michigan to confront Angela in person.

It's pretty obvious. For one thing, there's no way it would take someone like Nev eight months to find out the woman he'd been sexting didn't exist. For another thing, he has an impulsive grin plastered all over his face for most of the filming; the kind of grin you can't hide when you have a secret joke.

I think Angela's story is real. It was too sad - in the banal way that real life is - to be fake. It's not difficult to pull off a Facebook stunt like Angela's - people do it all the time.

Her profound embarrassment on being caught is as hard to fake as Nev's silly grin is to conceal. There's also no decent way to draft two seriously disabled young men into a faux documentary of this nature - they had to be real.

What's sad about this is that Nev and his cohorts exploited a miserable, lonely woman (and compulsive liar) to make a film that people have somehow found insightful. In fact it's sad, and rather silly.