Review* Catfish

“And I thank god for the catfish because we would be droll, boring and dull if we didn’t have somebody nipping at our fin.”

I just checked, and it looks like I haven’t written a film review on this site since August!  That’s just disgusting.  I’ve certainly seen films since then, but I haven’t had the energy to put my thoughts down on a post, but I thought I would stop slacking and write about an amazingly strange and awesome film I’ve seen recently…Catfish.

Catfish has been available on dvd for quite awhile now, but I’m guessing there is a great number of you that haven’t seen it.  It’s a documentary made by two young filmmakers following their friend, Nev, as he begins an online relationship on facebook.  I first heard of Catfish when it premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, and the message coming out of the festival was, “Don’t learn anything about this film!”  It became a movie that you should avoid spoiler alerts at all costs, and a new kind of “real-life online thriller.”  How could I not be intrigued by this kind of marketing, so I quickly put Catfish at the top of my NetFlix queue and patiently waited for the film to make its way to my mailbox.

So, how do I write this review and not completely spoil this movie for you?  Well, I haven’t really figured that out, so I’ll probably just try to say as little as possible.  I can say that I found the film to be amazing and surprising.  Although I avoided spoilers, I did watch the films trailer, and combined with the “keep the secret” type of marketing, you can’t help but have some expectations on where the film’s story is going to go.  I can say that my expectations were wrong and I was somewhat surprised by the film.  It has a sadness and empathy that I wasn’t expecting.  It’s definitely a cautionary tale, but not just in how we live our lives in the public online, but how we judge others and ourselves.  I definitely think the description of “thriller” is misleading.

Much like the excellent Exit Through the Gift Shop, which was on my top ten of last year, and is nominated for an Oscar, Catfish has found some controversy with people claiming the film is not a real documentary, or even staged.  I’ll take the filmmakers at their word and trust that this film is a real story with real people, but I’ll say the same thing I said in reference to the Bansky film’s claims of being a fake “hoax.”  It doesn’t matter.  The message of the film stays the same either way.  This is a small film, but a great one.  I highly recommend it…especially for anyone on facebook.  4 stars.