Catfish – Review

When I first received my invite to go to a special screening of Catfish I had no idea what I was walking into. The marketing for the film, with its cryptic looking painted Catfish and its self classification as a “reality thriller” gave me implications that this was going to be a “faux documentary” horror flick. Even the trailer, which contains none of these elements, had a certain creepiness about it that made me think it was going to be about an internet stalker. None of these implications can be further from the truth but unfortunately they left me expecting a horrific twist, especially during one scene in the middle of the film that seemed ripe for a sudden jump scare that would change the direction of the film.

Instead of a horror flick Catfish is a “documentary” (more on that later) about a young photographer named Yanev Schulman who enters into an online friendship with a family in Michigan. This begins when he receives paintings from the young daughter Abby of his own photographs. He then becomes a pen pal of the family, sending them pictures and receiving Abby’s paintings. The drama is furthered when he begins a cyber-romance with Abby’s older sister Megan. In respect to the marketing’s plea to “Tell No One What It Is” I won’t divulge anymore plot elements suffice to say that the ensuing events are only shocking in the way that a mundane new report on “cyber romances gone wrong” would be.

I refer to the film as a “documentary” because there is some controversy over whether or not the events in the film are actually fictional. I’ve read much of the arguments online and all are fairly compelling to suggest that this is all fabricated. The only evidence I have to the contrary is that the filmmakers stressed it was all real in a post screening Q&A and that the story is simply too mundane to bother faking a documentary about. I was hoping for definitive proof from the telltale “The events depicted in this movie are fictitious…” disclaimer but the theater unfortunately shut off the projector before the credits to make time for the Q&A.

Aside from the misleading marketing I did enjoy parts of the film once I accepted what it was. The characters are all likeable and I enjoyed following them throughout the story. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t seem to have a clear direction that it wants to follow. It switches back and forth between a sentimental story of a budding relationship, an investigative piece and ultimately a story about rebuilding a relationship based on truth. If this is a true documentary then all of these could be blamed on the constantly changing events that surprised the filmmakers, causing them to change the direction based on new evidence. This would be fine but unfortunately there is far too much to this story to be contained in a 94 minute film. This results in some events early on in the film that seem to come out of nowhere. For example, Yanev and Megan’s relationship changes from an online correspondence to a romance in a few minutes of screen time. According to the filmmakers, the omitted content will be included on the DVD and that may fix some of my issues with it. As it stands however, Catfish is an interesting look into the world of online friendships and relationships and the trust issues that they bear that ultimately gets bogged down by its constantly changing direction and unfortunately edited first act.

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