Catfish (2010)

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Directors Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman

Stars Yaniv ‘Nev’ Schulman, Angela Wesselman-Pierce, Abby Pierce

Things You Might Like

• An intriguing plot that doesn’t let up
• The use of modern technology as a framework for the narrative
• In-depth look at truth, and what it means to trust someone

Things You Might Not Like

• See above
• Also, really creepy ranch scene

Conclusion
Whether you like it or not, Catfish is an experience like no other, and simply cannot be missed.

Your Mileage Will Vary out of 5 Stagnant Cod

Jonathan David Lim

***

The tagline of this film is ‘Don’t let anyone tell you what it is,’ which of course makes my job exceedingly difficult. There are two reasons for this:

1. a concise, accurate review so desperately hinges on my spoiling the plot that its become a burden not to;
   and
2. I completely agree.

Any mention of Catfish you see written anywhere, be it here, on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr — just bounce your eyes away and don’t look back. Because chances are, if your friends have seen Catfish and are talking about it, it’s already been ruined for you.

So before I get into things, I’m going to ask you to watch Catfish. Which is strange, I know. Normally, one would wait until the end of the review before making a decision on whether or not to watch the film. But I can’t do that this time. I simply can’t. Your enjoyment of the film is irrelevant, in this particular case. All that matters is you experience it, for what it’s worth.

What will follow is not so much a review as it is a reflection on a work of art. An open discussion. Please use the comments section to keep the discussion going; it’s no fun talking to oneself.

***

My family moved to Pennsylvania from California during my final year of high school. Sent to a private school, my graduating class had a total of twelve students, including myself. It was off to university soon after that. One year into university, and my family moved again, this time to a smaller town in the same state.

Within three years, I’d met and made four groups of new friends: high school friends, university friends, and local friends in two different locations.

Thankfully, I had one group who was stable throughout all of it: my Internet friends.

My Internet friends consisted of people from all over the globe, though most were in the United States. I ‘met’ them in an Internet forum, and communicated via AIM, email, and Xanga blog posts. They were a solid bunch: they always had my back, were always there to listen to me when I was feeling down, always there to lend a hand when I was in trouble.

But at some point — and I can’t honestly remember when — I ‘met’ a girl through the usual means who decided to play me for a fool. It was bound to happen sooner or later. I couldn’t possibly go so long talking to all these people and expect every single one of them to be genuine. Nevertheless, when I discovered after a number of laborious AIM conversations — including one in which she faked an overdose — that nothing she had ever said was true, I was gutted. I felt utterly betrayed. I knew she’d lied about her photography (she once claimed to have taken a photo I’d seen numerous times before, on CD covers and in punk rock zines), but I figured that was just to give herself a bit of artistic cred, as I was touting myself as a cartoonist. Y’know, so we’d have something in common.

According to her, his name was Mark and he lived in New Jersey. Deception, it appears, wears steel-toed boots.

Little did I know that her lies stretched so deeply. When next we chatted, I told her I could no longer trust her. That our friendship was over.

And that was the last I ever heard from her. I don’t even remember her name.

Thank goodness, then, that it didn’t get very far. Had it evolved into something of a relationship … well, that would have been the absolute worst.

So in a way, I can sympathise with New York photographer Yaniv ‘Nev’ Schulman, the unwitting star of Catfish, directed by his brother Ariel and their friend Henry Joost.

At the start, Catfish is about Nev and Abby, an 8-year-old painter from Michigan who based one of her paintings on a photo Nev took. Sending back words of encouragement, Nev and Abby begin a correspondence that soon involves Abby’s mother Angela and half-sister Megan.

In time, Nev and Megan fall in love, and it is at this point that Ariel and Henry turn on the cameras. Apparently sensing something filmworthy — and what is more filmworthy than a long-distance relationship between people who have yet to meet? — the pair begin to document Nev’s online relationship.

The first forty minutes of the film are very sweet and innocent. We see the lovestruck Nev hold an awkward first-time phone conversation with Megan, which blossoms into a flirty online romance with hopes of meeting each other one day.

Opportunity strikes when Nev and the crew have work in Vail, Colorado, about halfway between Michigan and New York. They decide to surprise Megan with a visit on her birthday, with hopes of turning the sickly-sweet text affair into a real live love connection. But things turn sour very soon.

That night in their hotel room, the boys discover that both Megan and Angela have been lying to Nev: they’ve been posting other peoples’ music on their Facebook accounts as their own. All right, so it’s not a huge deal, but it is irksome. When the trio investigate further, however, they come upon a web of lies and deceit that calls into question the validity of Megan’s affections, Abby’s artwork, and Angela’s involvement in the entire affair.

What follows is an intriguing, but no less disturbing, mystery about these new women in Nev’s life. And right off the bat, it asks: how well do you know your online ‘friends’? Not very well, it appears. When Nev, Henry, and Ariel head to Megan’s ranch, they find nothing but desolate farmland. It is an intense sequence that had me wondering whether or not Catfish was suddenly going to turn into torture porn.

Eventually, we meet the real Abby and Angela. But instead of the artistic wunderkind and gorgeous dancer mother, we meet an ordinary little girl, and a woman who can’t bear to live her mundane life. She continues to invent lies as Nev and Co. build up to the heart-wrenching confrontation. Lies about chemotherapy, Abby’s utter surprise as Nev’s visit, and worse yet, Megan’s rehabilitation. Remember, this whole thing started when an 8-year-old painted a picture of one of Nev’s photos. But that same 8-year-old barely knows what a pastel is, least of all how to work one into, admittedly dull, but flattering pieces of art.

It’s all Angela. Trapped in a loveless relationship with her husband Vince, and forced to take care of his two disabled sons, Angela — like myself — turned to the Internet for escape. A wannabe dancer, painter, equestrian, and photographer, Angela felt the need to rub shoulders with the New York crowd. What better way, then, to exploit a naive photographer and her own 8-year-old daughter?

It’s hard to say what I think about this film. At some points, I’m appalled it was even allowed to be spliced together and edited into a feature-length documentary. I’m not even sure if it is a documentary — there have certainly been a good number of theories posited online that suggest the whole thing is a hoax. Or if it’s not a hoax, then Ariel and Henry already knew of Angela’s ruse, and played up to it for the camera, allowing it to carry on for eight months before anything was done about it.

But whatever the case, one thing is for certain: it’s the single most compelling drama I have ever seen. Whether or not the reality of the film was invented (which, considering the nature of it, is not so far-fetched), anyone with half a brain can see that it’s a beautiful and arresting look at trust in the modern world.

This is even further enhanced by the continuous use of Google, YouTube, and other Internet platforms to piece the film together. While a good deal of it is actual footage, much of it is seen through the interface by which most everyone has become exceedingly familiar. The computer is our window to the world, and in this particular case, a window into Nev and Angela’s relationship and its consequences.

Near the end of the film, Vince recalls an anecdote about cod being shipped overseas. Apparently, when shipped alone, the cod would get stagnant in their tanks, their scales almost rotting, and by the time they reached their destination, it was tasteless. So a catfish was put in each of the tanks to keep the cod from stagnating, by forcing the cod to stay alert and remain sharp. Vince states that ‘There are those people who are catfish in life, and they keep you on your toes. [...] They keep you fresh.’

‘And I thank God for catfish,’ he concludes, as his story closes with a shot of Angela playing with her hair.

It’s difficult to say what Joost and Schulman mean by this. Were they implying that Angela was the catfish, keeping Nev on his toes, to pay strict attention to the people he meets online? Were they giving us a warning about the dangers of online relationships? It Catfish a cautionary tale?

Or were they saying that Nev was the catfish? That without him, Angela would never have been inspired to create, no matter how damaging her creation was to the inhabitants of the real world?

Or perhaps they are both catfish, chasing their own tails and each others’, swimming in Möbius strip of hope and frustration and self-doubt. Nev is still single by the end of the film, crestfallen that the young woman he fell in love with not only doesn’t exist, but that he’ll never see or speak with her again. Angela is still in a marriage and a lifestyle that will never extend beyond the walls of her house, which by the end of the film is closing ever-tighter, as the media have pointed out that her time online is now strictly monitored.

How self-harming has technology become? How freeing is it really?

In my own case, I eventually came to learn that I was losing out on real relationships by focusing so much of my time and energy into online ones. My desire to escape meant alienating those who were physically around me. My catfish wasn’t one I would meet online; it was in the real world, inhabited by real people.

Hopefully, Nev and Angela will realize this someday.

Catch your own Catfish on Amazon