Catfish (2010)

Catfish is a documentary about a deception. In a way, the movie itself is also a deception. Some people think it’s not even a real documentary, rather written and staged like one, and therefore deceitful on that basis. However, the film’s deceit is not in its content, but in its marketing, which is a clever but ultimately degrading attempt to draw a wider audience.

Ariel “Rel” Schulman and his filmmaking partner Henry Joost share an office in New York City with Rel’s brother Yaniv (“Nev”), a still photographer. The three of them work together with various dance companies. One day Nev receives a large package at the office, and Rel and Henry film him opening an unexpected gift: a painted canvas reproduction of a picture of ballet dancers, photographed by Nev and printed in the arts section of a New York paper. Nev is amazed not just by the quality and generosity of the artwork, but by the idea that this canvas was painted by an 8-year-old Michigan girl named Abby. Nev begins corresponding with Abby, encouraging her to continue with her art and sending her more photos to work from.

This leads to Nev eventually connecting with Abby’s mother, Angela, who sounds very grateful for Nev’s encouragement. They become Facebook friends, and soon Nev is connected with a whole circle of Angela’s friends and family, especially Angela’s older daughter, Megan. Rel and Henry keep turning their cameras on Nev, filming his infatuation with Megan over the next eight months, their frequent texts, phone calls, and increasing romantic talk. When the three New Yorkers travel to Colorado for a photo gig, the online communications between Nev and Megan turn curious, bewildering Nev and his two best friends. So they decide to turn their return-trip layover in Chicago into a field trip, renting a car and driving unannounced to the small community in Michigan where Angela and her family are supposed to live.

If you’ve seen the trailer for Catfish, you’re supposed to believe things get creepy and scary and horrific at this point, what with the ominous tone of the music, the shadowy night footage, the quick edits, and the overblown critics’ quotes, particularly one that invokes the name Hitchcock. (A reminder for clarification: Apart from Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock didn’t make horror movies. He made suspense thrillers.) The posters and related marketing media for the film are all in black, white, and red, the stereotypical horror-movie color scheme. This is ALL BALONEY.

It is not my intent to spoil the secrets revealed in the second half of the film, but I will tell you that it is not “another Blair Witch rip-off” as some have categorized it. Catfish is not scary. NOT AT ALL. If you watch this movie expecting anything like a horror movie, you will be disappointed. And don’t expect any great revelations involving the title, which is taken nearly at random from a rambling speech near the end. If you can disavow such preconceptions and just watch the film as presented, you’ll see that what the three men find in Michigan is quite intriguing and kind of heartbreaking. There is some psychosis involved, but not of the weapon-wielding maniac variety. Taking the film as a straight documentary, Catfish is a clearer portrait of the connected-yet-disconnected Facebook generation than the druggy snobbery of The Social Network.

I prefer to critique a film based on its own merits, and not on the hype surrounding it; in this case, I cannot make that distinction. Hype is an element of any marketing effort, but the approach Universal Pictures has taken in marketing this movie is misleading and objectionable, and it reflects badly on both the film and its makers. The movie is interesting and thought-provoking, but I was also strongly perturbed that the scary-movie hype was complete B.S. and just a gimmick to get more asses in the seats for an indie documentary. And the comparison to The Blair Witch Project is not far off, as both films are low-budget productions that benefited from unusual marketing campaigns based around a big falsehood: the “scary” climax of Catfish, and the “found footage” of Blair Witch.

This comparison brings up another trap Catfish falls into. Along with the proliferation of great documentaries in recent years, we’ve also had staged “mockumentaries” such as Blair Witch, This Is Spinal Tap, Paranormal Activity, Waiting for Guffman, and now–if you believe Casey and Joaquin aren’t trying to cover their butts on a career-suicide flop–I’m Still Here. It’s gotten to the point where audiences don’t believe anything on the screen. Some doubt the veracity of Catfish, arguing that it was all written and staged, looking for clues to bolster their disbelief. Personally, I don’t believe the film is a fake. If that were the case, why wouldn’t the filmmakers have made it more dramatic? These guys saw an interesting subject and turned their cameras to it, just as one of their producers, Andrew Jarecki, did when a remark from an interview subject led him to follow a story that resulted in one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen, Capturing the Friedmans.

I know several documentarians and have seen up close how they film their subjects. Based on their work and Jarecki’s, I don’t doubt the intentions of Nev, Rel, and Henry in making Catfish. What I do question is their apparent selling out to a blatantly deceptive Hollywood marketing machine. Sure, more people will see their movie and talk about it, but they may not like the tone of the conversation.