Catfish

Directors: Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost
Starring: Nev Schulman
Release Date: September 17, 2010
Length: 1 hour 26 minutes

One of the most shocking and original films of 2010, Catfish is a thrilling, creepy documentary about New Yorker, Yaniv “Nev” Schulman and his online relationship with a girl he has never met before. Although they may have suspected it, I doubt filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (Nev’s brother) expected to make the spine-chilling film about the Internet that they ended up with. 24-year-old photographer, Nev is contacted through Facebook, by an 8-year-old girl named Abby. Abby tells Nev she loves his photos and makes paintings of them, which she shows to him on facebook. After a few weeks that their Facebook friendship has passed, Nev’s brother, Ariel and his friend Henry take an interest into Nev’s new development with Abby and begin to film and follow Nev. Soon, Nev meets Abby’s mom, Angela, her dad, Vince, and her older sister, Megan, all through the internet of course. Nev gives advice to Abby on her paintings and finally gets a chance to speak to her mom and dad on the phone. When Nev speaks to her older sister, Megan on the phone, the two begin to have a romantic relationship through phone and the computer. After a few months, things begin not to match up, Nev, Ariel and Henry take a road trip to Michigan, where these people supposedly live and find out whether this “facebook” family is what it leads itself on to be. People seem suspicious about whether this film is a hoax or not, but in my honest belief, this movie is real. This isn’t a Blair Witch Project kind of movie, partly because this is a bit more realistic than Blair Witch anyway. What is there to doubt about two filmmakers who take an interest in a friend’s story? Lucky for them that this story leads into something much more thought provoking then it started out to be and now they have probably made a lot of money from it. However, there’s no question that certain parts were played up and exaggerated to a certain degree, but nothing seemed false or deceiving. You certainly did not feel like you wasted your money, paying to see a sham. It’s hard to compliment or critique a film like this because this isn’t a fictionalized film, but this also isn’t a planned documentary. All I can say is that these guys did a marvelous job of being fortunately granted with this story and using their cameras to make it a movie. The credibility they do have is how they, as people, went about investigating this situation, so it made you feel like you were right there with them. Once again, this movie doesn’t feel real. It is real. There are some scenes that will make you cringe more than you could ever have watching any fictionalized horror movie. There is an aspect of this film that will make you sympathize and feel terrible for Nev. There are some scenes that will make you laugh because they are truly funny. Every emotion you could feel toward a film is multiplied 10 times because everything is real. This is just like any other suspense film, but it’s in documentary format. You can only imagine how that makes one feel watching it. This is a one of a kind film that doesn’t come around too often. Be sure to catch Catfish.