Catfish: Not Based on True Events

How well do you know your Facebook friends? A new movie called “Catfish” isn’t about fishing, but it will resonate with anyone who finds something fishy about the way we communicate and connect in this modern world.

It’s hard to write about a movie like “Catfish” for two reasons.  First, I’ve not seen another movie like it, and second, there’s a surprise ending I don’t want to give away.  However, if you are one of the 500 million people who use Facebook -- and ever wonder how “authentic” the photo of one your “friends” actually is -- this movie is for you.

It all began innocently enough.  Several years ago, professional photographer Nev Shulman, a brother of a filmmaker Ariel Shulman in New York, got a Facebook friend request from an 8 year-old Michigan girl named Abby. A talented aspiring artist, she contacted him after seeing one of his photos in the New York Sun and requested permission to use it as inspiration for her own ballerina painting.  He granted permission – charmed by her precocious nature and flattered by her respect for his photos – and began a sweet online friendship with the girl.

Over the course of several months, he learns a great deal about her family who lives in rural Michigan.  In order to ship a print of the painting to Nev, he has brief conversations with her mother Angela, discovers her paintings have begun selling in galleries in her hometown, learns details about their horse farm, and even cyberflirts with the girl’s 19 year old daughter Meghan.

In fact, Nev and Meghan’s relationship blossoms, with phone calls, chats, instant messaging, texts.  In spite of the long distance and improbable genesis, they develop a real romance and Nev decides to go see her.

Throughout all of this, Nev’s brother and his friend are filming a documentary, presumably about the little artistic prodigy in Michigan. Ariel and Henry Joost have shaky camera work, unprofessional editing, and real-life arguments, as the movie obviously becomes less about the little girl and more about how well you can really know anyone over the Internet.

Nev good naturedly goes along with his brother and friend, even though he says at the outset that this movie should not be about him. Throughout the film, he expresses doubt and regret that they’d gotten themselves into this…  as details begin to emerge that foreshadow the not-so-surprising troubles which follow.

I don’t want to say too much.  However, this is one of the most fascinating movies I’ve seen in a long time and is guaranteed to be a conversation-starter amongst your friends. “Catfish” is rated PG-13 (meaning that parents are strongly cautioned) because of some swearing, creepy suspense, and sexual text messages read aloud.  However, I decided to show my twelve year old daughter the movie, which prompted over an hour’s worth of conversation about loneliness, the value of online relationships versus real-life ones, vanity, lost dreams, and marriage.  (For the record, I fast forwarded through one part – where he reads aloud some of the sexy text messages he and Meghan had exchanged.)

If you have a mature teen, and want a way to talk to them about the dangers of this modern age, you could do worse than spending the next 86 minutes of your life with this little jewel of a cautionary tale.