I have 20 minutes to write this. That might be a good thing since I've been told I tend to ramble on a bit...
“Catfish.” This is a good film, though maybe not what you would expect. It’s a documentary of sorts, with two guys (Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman) filming the relationship their best friend Nev (Yaniv Schulman), a photographer in New York City, develops over Facebook with a family in Michigan.
The family includes a mom, two daughters and a brother, and various other loosely associated relatives. They may or may not have horses. One of them is an artist. One of them may be a dancer…or something.
"Not based on a true story,” the trailer says.
"Not inspired by true events.”
"Just true.”
Intriguing, right?
You’d be forgiven for thinking this was some sort of a horror film from the trailer.
It’s creepy, no doubt, and there are some horrific aspects to it, but mostly it’s an exploration of our online, social media culture and the types of relationships that can develop over the Internet -- and what happens when real human beings intersect with their online-only friends.
I spent two weeks avoiding learning anything about the film, before watching it. This helped, and I recommend it. Beyond reading this blog – which I promise has no spoilers – you should really avoid details that might give away the crux of this story.
We watched “The Social Network” a couple of weeks prior to seeing “Catfish” and it really helped to give context and contrast – sort of like seeing two very different sides to the same story. I recommend doing that.
If this film starts out a little weirdly, hang in there. It gets better and better and is worth sticking around until the end, just like Nev does.
