My Writings
Review - Catfish
Catfish will polarise audiences, depending on whether you see this as a clever and innovative piece of film-making, or contrived opportunism. It is difficult to view the film and then properly assess it, without making a decision about the fundamental aims of the film-makers. The premise of the film, is that some New York semi-professional film-makers fell upon a developing story, based upon a Facebook contact. This Facebook contact is Abby Pierce, a young girl with a prodigious artistic talent, who befriends Nev Schulman, intriguing him and his colleagues. When Nev begins corresponding with Abby's older sister, the attractive Megan, they begin to be suspicious of what is real, and imagined, and they decide to pay the family a surprise visit in rural Michigan.
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The boys continue to record their visit as a documentary or travelogue. It is no surprise when the boys find that young Abby is actually just an ordinary little girl, and it is her mother Angela who has used the facebook site to showcase her own art as that of her 10 year old daughter. When pressed, Angela admits that she has created several fictitious Facebook characters, including Megan.
If you are prepared to let the story unravel, and not ask too many questions, then the only person who comes out of this badly is Angela. However with more thought, you begin to realise that the movie was contrived from start to finish. The producers have been deliberately looking for an opportunity to make this precise and exact film. At least Angela does have some talent, and indeed used Catfish to advertise her art, with some success. Billed as a fake documentary, the movie deserves credit for exploiting an opportunity. The scale of the success of Catfish has taken everyone by surprise, but the critical acclaim it is receiving from some quarters is at best misguided.
2/10 Contrived Opportunism
Review written by John Franklin : December 2010
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