Catfish : Movie Review

“Catfish” Movie Review

It started with a picture. A 24-year-old man named Yaniv Schulman in New York photographs a scene in a ballet and it’s put into a magazine. An 8-year-old girl named Abby Pierce in Michigan takes his photo and paints an exact replica of it. She then sent the painting to him. He was very impressed and sent his next photograph to her. She replied with another beautiful painting. Nev’s older brother Ariel and his friend Henry Joost decided to create a film to document the correspondence.

“Catfish” watches over this communication through pictures and Nev’s occasional conversations with Abby’s mom, Angela. Directors Ariel and Henry follow Nev as he starts to become friends with the whole family through the popular social networking site, FaceBook. Also caught on film is Nev’s developing relationship with Abby’s 19-year-old sister Megan. The film was released in 2010 and then released to DVD and Blu-Ray January 4th 2011.

Nev and Megan fall in “love” over the Internet and spend a lot of time talking to each other. Over time they discover that Megan has been lying to Nev throughout the course their relationship which leads the three to question what other things Megan could have been lying about. The three decide to investigate and discover many more lies. They decide to take action and make a surprise visit to their home in Ishpeming, Michigan. Over the course of their visit they start to uncover the truth, which happens to be much bigger than what they expected and quite awkward as well. It really gets you thinking about how social networking can be. You can’t truly get to know someone just over the Internet. The movie really brings that to attention because the situation the people in the movie are put into is such a real life situation.

I really liked the idea behind the movie’s title. Towards the end of the movie, Angela’s husband, Vince, talks about how catfish were used in vats to keep cod active and agile. He related the catfish to people and said, “[T]here are those people who are catfish in life. And they keep you on your toes. They keep you guessing, they keep you fresh.” He says he’s thankful for the catfish in life because without them, life would just be boring and uneventful, lacking the excitement people really look for.

This is a movie I definitely recommend. At first it didn’t sound all that interesting to me but as I watched it and saw how the plot developed it was hard to shut it off. It’s a really shocking movie and the twists and turns it took really caught me off guard but it certainly kept me interested. It was just one of those “Catfish” movies that keep you on your toes and never leave you with a dull moment. The fact that it’s shot in a home video/documentary style makes everything seem a bit more realistic so it’s easier to connect or relate to what’s going on. Late teens and young adults will find this movie a much more entertaining than someone younger because it’s more relevant to the older generation, especially the FaceBook users.