Catfish (2010– 87 mins) Ariel & Yaniv Schulman

—-NON-SPOILER PART OF REVIEW——

I wanted tostart by  specifying that to fully talk about this movie there has to be a spoiler free part and a spoiler part. B/c I cannot fully describe my feelings about the “documentary” without giving away some details of the reveal.  The film is about 3 filmmakers in NY who film one of theirs relationship with a family from a small town in Michigan. Niv then starts to get into a long distance romantic relationship with the 19 year old girl from the family. However, when some inconsistencies occur in their conversations, questions among the 3 filmmakers start to arise and they want to see if everything and everyone is what they seem. What happens from there is what makes the documentary one to watch. I won’t give anything away cept that I will do something I normally do not do i nthese reviews. I will put the official trailer for the doc in the review. This is mainly to give those of you who don’t know what movie I am even talking about an idea of what it is and also to give all the info that I don’t want to reveal without me spoiling anything before my warning for spoilers has been made.

I will give some thoughts first here and my verdict of the movie, b/c it won’t change even when I give my thoughts on it all. First don’t worry about one thing that comes across on the trailer. This is in NO WAY a horror movie. It’s just suspenseful. It does a great job keeping you glued to the story and making you want to keep watching. The trailer makes it seem like there is some horror elements by mentioning Hitchcock. Don’t worry there is no part where a bunch of people from Children of the Corn start killing these guys.

Verdict—> I was fairly surprised that I liked it as much as I did. I will urge you to come back here after watching the movie and read the spoiler section below to get some more thoughts on this documentary. None the less I think this is a flick that whether you think you like it or not you will both not want to miss any of it and also think about it after it is over. Pick it up at the Red Box as a good part of a double feature. Not something I would watch by itself, documentaries tend to be ok but they leave you wanting more in the vein of movies.

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—– SPOILER PART OF REVIEW—-

Ok first off I will reiterate, I think it was a good film and really kept me wanting to continue to watch and see it to the end. And after all that’s the main point to making or watching a movie. However, I think there is two ways to look at the documentary and I will give more of my thoughts after this since they kinda are independent of what kind of production this really is.

First I think these 2 guys are likely completely full of shit. I am not going to list off a bunch of ways why I think this but I do. This is more of a Blair Witch then a true documentary. There is however, part of me that has some willing suspension of disbelief to think that there is likely part of this story that has some truthful elements to it. That, or it can be “based on real events”. Which can mean either someone started to try and con them or they heard of a story where someone went thru this and elaborated and then thought it would make a great movie. Take that premise and then put in the idea of putting it into a doc form then you get a cheaper way of making it into an Indy movie.

One thing that stands out and sticks with the viewer is the character of Angela. When we first start to realize the whole idea of the little girl artist and the perfect love interest is one big sham,we think the lady is just bat shit crazy. However, as we delve more into the everyday life of Angela more ideas start to take hold. It’s not just a woman who has created 16 lives and facebook accounts for the fun and whimsy of it. She’s a woman with a pretty rotten lot in life who is using this whole escapade to live a life she never had. She never was able to enjoy her painting or become the dancer she wanted to be. So she created the other people to have their lives be what she couldn’t be. She’s not a rotten mom or bad person. She takes good care of the severely retarded twins who are not even her own children. She cares for them and her husband well. It’s hard work and would drain any persons will. Yet she goes about her business and escapes through the hobby that is maintaining the vise of the relationship with Niv and maintaining the multitude of facebook pages. It’s the looking further into Angela that gives us the roller coaster of feelings for her. We can care less about the snotty jack-ass film makers who ultimately just want the beautiful woman to be real so Niv can ride away into the sunset and live happily ever after. We just care that this woman, her sadness that even tho she was deceiving she now has to go back to her monotone life, but not she has no outlet for happiness. We ultimately are left to feel bad for her and wonder what next? Sure the filmmakers try and make the viewer feel better by saying she now has a website for her art blah blah, b/c they now apparently can care less. But the character of Angela is left lonly and unhappy. That’s the real tragedy of it all. Not the underlying lesson of hey everyone out there make sure you google everyone you talk to on the internet b/c no one really is who you think they are. Sure an important life lesson, but not really the issue that hits home the most. I tend to contradict myself a bit here (what else is new), but I think that even tho I feel the movie is a work of fiction, I think the film makers do a very good  job of making us buy into the character of Angela and making us feel for her 10 seconds after we think she is nuckin futs.

If you read the spoiler parts beforeyou watched it well, now you can go watch it. You will prolly like it, at the very least it will hold your attention longer then The American will.

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