Catfish

When I first heard about this movie I read the synopsis to try and figure out if I was interested in the film. One review I read made the film seem scary. The other review made it seem boring. My overall opinion was that the film would just be another faux-documentary horror film.

After seeing the film, I'm not sure why I thought this was going to be a scary film. It isn't scary. And, it isn't meant to be scary. There is a level of thrill to the film due the mystery of it all. But, it is just meant to be a documentary about social networking and online dating. In fact, The Social Network is the Facebook movie and Catfish is the anti-Facebook movie.

The film documents a relationship started through Facebook when a young girl, Abbie, sends a photographer a painting she did inspired by one of his photographs. The correspondence grows and the photographer begins speaking with the mother and then the older sister. After a while, a relationship starts between the oldest sister and the photographer. Then, we discover not all the information being shared falls into place.

The photographer and his friends decide to make a movie documenting the relationship and then the eventual meeting of the Megan and Nev. Once Nev realizes somethign is amiss, the film begins to get uncomfortable. There is an eerieness and a discomfort to parts of the films. I grew a little paniced for a bit, too. The anticipation of who was going to answer the door if this 'Megan' wasn't real.

The film is about loneliness, imagination, and the ways we begin to entertain ourselves. The film deals with regret and lost chances. There is a great deal of sadness to the Angela character. I was surprised by how much she grows into a likeable person after one should only view her as unstable.

The question everyone wants to know: is the film fact or fiction? My answer: it doesn't really matter because these types of things do happen.

B-