Catfish, the other Facebook movie. Billed as a reality thriller, Catfish saw a limited release following I'm Still Here, which chronicled Joaquin Phoenix's supposed mental breakdown, and just before The Social Network. I'm issuing a mild spoiler warning because the less you know about the movie, the better.
The subject of Catfish is Yaniv Schulman, a 20-something photographer living in New York City. One day, he receives a painting based off one of his photographs from an 8-year old girl named Abby who lives in the rural town of Ishpeming, Michigan. Through Facebook, Yaniv becomes friends with Abby and her extended network of family, including her parents Angela and Vince. Yaniv becomes particularly interested in Abby's pretty, 19-year old sister, Megan. They engage in increasingly intimate conversations through IM, text messaging, and over the phone. Yaniv's brother, Ariel, and friend, Henry Joost, are on hand to chronicle the long distance friendship.
Yaniv eventually learns that something just isn't kosher. Megan, an aspiring singer/songwriter, has been sending him MP3s of her songs. However, the boys discover these tunes were performed by other musicians and uploaded on YouTube. Yaniv cannot find any information online about Abby, supposedly a well-known local artist. They decide to make the trip to Michigan and find out exactly what the hell is going on.
I hesitate to say anymore and already feel as if I've spilled too many beans. However, anyone with half a brain should have figured out there was something wrong about Abby and Megan's story from the get-go. The film's trailer prominently features the guys on a midnight visit to the farmhouse where Megan purportedly lives. The scene plays out like something out of The Blair Witch Project, but Catfish is hardly a horror film. The first hour of the movie concerns itself with the romance between Yaniv and Megan, none of which is very interesting. Slog your way past it and the last twenty minutes are riveting.
The veracity of the film of remained a point of contention between filmmakers and their audiences. It is one that almost mirrors the focal point of Catfish. Injecting fictionalized elements into a documentary is nothing new, going all the way back to 1922's Nanook of the North. Was the entire movie scripted out beforehand? Doubtful. Were the Schulmans and Joost as gullible as they made out to be? Also doubtful. It seems questionable that a young hipster wouldn't think of doing a simple Google search almost immediately. Catfish contains several scenes in the beginning that feel too good to be true. It is almost as if they thought, "That was cool, but we forgot to turn on the camera. Do it again."
It makes you wonder exactly who was playing who
Rating: **
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