Review of Catfish (2010) by Jon E — 24 Jun 2011

Facebook is such a huge part of our lives that it was only a matter of time before some kind of movie came out about it. Enter "Catfish." It is essentially a film about a photograhper who starts connecting with this family on facebook because this little girl sees a photo of his and paints a great replica of it. The two begin exchanging art and what not and the this guy Nev finds her older sister and starts talking to her because, well, she's hot.

The two begin a facebook relationship despite the fact that he lives in New York and she lives on a farm in Michigan. Their relationship is either gonna seem funny or creepy to people because they've never met in real life. He tries to set up times to meet her, but each and everytime something comes up and she can't meet. To make matters worse, certain details about her are starting to look suspicious. Things may not be all that they appear.

I am a stickler for spoilers. I can't stand them so I'll spot there because I've taken you up to the big reveal. You'll have to watch this movie yourself and make up your own mind. To me this movie was kind of creepy. It does explore the nature of facebook relationships well.

This film tries to straddle the fine line between documentary and fiction movie-making. It looks and sounds like a documentary (the filmmakers and "actors" even credit themselves). But, there are moments towards the end where I thought, "there's no way this a documentary." It is not quite the ground-breaking movie it marketed itself to be, but it is timely for our society. I can't hate this movie, but it wasn't what the filmmakers sold it to be.