Something's coming...

Introduction

Catfish follows the story of Nev Schulman, a New York photographer, as he receives paintings of his photos from an 8 year old girl. He strikes up a relationship with the girl's family via Facebook and becomes interested in her older sister. However, through the powers of Google, Nev begins to discover that things might not be as they seem...



I don't really want to say any more than that for fear of spoiling your experience. What I will say is please don't think that you're going to see the film the trailer thinks it is trying to sell...

Extras

Secrets revealed: Exclusive interviews with the film-makers - in which no secrets are actually revealed, and they continue to tell you that this was all real and all 100% genuine.

Conclusion

*Spoiler alert*

I try to avoid doing this most of the time, but I really want to talk about some aspects of the film here, so don't read on if you've got this one on your radar. You really don't want to know all that much about it before you see it for the first time.

*Spoiler alert*



You should never believe everything you see in trailers. We all know that don't we? They are designed to sucker you into watching the film. And they are edited slickly to make things look really exciting. Just like posters. They look cool and edgy and describe films in terms such as:-

"a riveting mystery that is a product of our times"

This is not a riveting mystery at all. As the film unfolds you realise exactly what is going to happen, and this is not another Blair Witch Project. They really are going to meet some people who won't kill them, and they'll all sit round and have a bit of a chat. The mystery is whether it is real or an elaborate hoax...



"where social networking, mobile devices, and electronic communication so often replace face-to-face personal contact"

Perhaps they do, but the point of the film is about face to face meetings and personal contact. If the people involved never actually met face to face, it would be very different.



"[this] compassionate documentary is a remarkable and powerful story of grace within a labyrinth of online intrigue."

Is it really a documentary? Is it compassionate? I'm not sure that it is remarkable. This is what masses of online debate revolves around. Did all this really happen? Or has all of this been staged? Have people been exploited here, or just rewarded for their part in some fiction? Would real life characters be so gullible and naive? Would you write fictional characters who would behave in some of the ways seen in this film? And would you try and trick people into watching a "documentary" by marketing it as some kind of Blair Witch style horror, only for it to be revealed as a plodding story about people who meet other people who lie about themselves on the internet?