Catfish - Movie Review

Story by Greg Bright 

| Published Oct 26, 2010

Sometimes a person stumbles across a story that is so perfect for its time that, even your film-making skills are amateur, you can’t screw it up. That is the case with the indie documentary “Catfish.”

It’s hard to review this film without giving away the end because the last 30 minutes are what make the film, but I won’t ruin it for you.

The story revolves around Nev, a 24-year-old freelance photographer in New York City, who through a series of events, meets a family from Minnesota and begins to correspond with them via Facebook.

As the story evolves, however, we find that this family may not be who they appear to be on Facebook, and Nev and the filmmakers head down to Minnesota to see what’s up.

As Nev discovers what is truly happening, his reaction and the reaction of the Minnesota family is frightening, funny and tragic.

The film captures the wide array of emotions of everyone involved, and the filmmakers should be thanking their lucky stars that everyone in this film was so open and honest on camera, because the real beauty here is the people, not the film.

In the hands of better filmmakers this thing could have been a masterpiece. As it is, though, it's still a powerful look at how the viral world can easily manipulate reality, with the click of a button.