Catfish

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Catfish is that its filmmakers – Henry Joost, Areil Schulman, and Yaniv Schulman – were naïve enough to think that its viewers couldn't see what was coming, or that they actually thought anyone think they were genuine, interesting people. Ever since AOL chatrooms and IM, people have been fabricating lives on the interweb. Now with the ease of social networking via Facebook, it's all the easier. Fear not: I have not given anything away about the film's super-secret reveal, nor have I spoiled the experience for you because, really, anyone having grown up in the age of chatrooms and IM knows that people lie on the internet. So, the first 30 minutes of the film works as a kind of suspense film: our protagonists lead us on a journey motivated by nothing more than mischief and curiosity. Here, the filmmakers show an uncanny ability to keep the viewer interested despite knowing what most likely lies ahead for Yaniv as he seeks to find out about a girl named Megan with whom he's been having a "Facebook relationship" with. Megan is the older sister of Abby, a child prodigy of sorts, saw one of Yaniv's photos in a New York magazine and painted it; this intrigued Yaniv to the point where he received a package from Michigan where Abby and Megan are from. Yaniv corresponds with other family members, but when a late night Gmail chat involves a song being sent where Megan claims ownership…things get a little messy and the boys want to confront Megan about it.

Here's the deal: taken at face value the film works as it keenly observes the folly of entering into such a relationship. However, and this is a big however, the film fails when we finally see what this whole thing is about (and no, I don't care if it's real or not…my inkling, though, is that it is real and that Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix soured everyone on docs that appear to be fake…and then end up being fake). The only way to do this is to talk about the film's final 30 minutes. So stop reading if you haven't seen the movie, and I'll continue after the jump…




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Okay. So, Yaniv finds out that there is no Megan and that Abby never painted the pictures. What he does find out is that Angela, who is very real, has fabricated the whole thing because, essentially, she like Yaniv's smile. But it's really not that simple. As the documentary continues to pervade the life of this poor woman, we learn that Angela is married and takes care of two mentally retarded sons that are her husband's from a previous marriage. Abby is just as a little girl would be: she's no prodigy, and in one of the film's best scenes she is asked by Yaniv how often she paints…and she replies: "You're confusing me!" in a way that only a little kid who is telling the truth can.

It's about this point in the film, too, the point where everything that's been hyped about the film's awesomeness hinges, feels faux. I was willing to go with the film, and quite honestly, was hoping that the big truth was that Megan was real…just not like her picture. Sometimes the obvious isn't so bad. I would have liked to see how the filmmakers responded to that, but it doesn't help a documentary film when your hosts ushering you through the events are pretty unlikable people. And as the suspense of the first half of the film gave way to exploitation tactics and an icky exhibitionalism, I couldn't respond to the film any longer because I didn't feel like its filmmakers were genuine people. Sure, they wanted to find the truth – whatever that is in a situation like this – but that lingering 20 minutes of the film where their camera catches Angela caring for her two sons as one repeatedly slaps himself in the face struck me as the most curious of decisions. Why? Are they really learning something that they couldn't already ascertain from their juvenile motel conversations? It's a question that kept creeping up as the film chugged towards its faux-poignant, disingenuous conclusion. I mean is it really interesting to us to see a final title card that informs us that "Yaniv is still on Facebook"? Was there ever any doubt? Was this a dilemma that was broached? The only dilemma for Yaniv was how he was going to get out of this sticky situation, and since his friends were filming the whole thing, lest he look like the cliché, heartless, young Manhattan douchebag…he sticks around until the bitter end making it even worse on Angela. (Nevermind the extremely false title card that informs us of how many friends Yaniv has, and that one of them is Angela*.)

There are some things to like about the film, though (again, this is what makes it so damn frustrating…I really wanted to love this movie): The aforementioned opening of the film that pieces together everything that's simultaneously cool and annoying (and dangerous) about the social networking experience, the way the film parcels out its information like the best of suspense films, the way that documentaries can show the potential for powerful moments through dumb luck and happenstance. I also liked the way the filmmakers, despite their disingenuous tone at the end, do show a clashing of cultures – Manhattan and Michigan – in the beginning moments of the filmmakers' trip into Michigan. It's an interesting contrast that sets the viewer up nicely – like most of the film, which is, in fact, a setup – to think that there's going to be some kind of major epiphany by film's end.

Sadly, though, the film is ultimately a miss. It's a misfire of exhibitionalism where instead of peering into the lives of people we would otherwise know nothing about, we instead walk away feeling gross for having been a fly on the subject's wall. A documentary should never make you feel that way (unless it's fake and being played for drama or shock effect); it should never make you feel like you regret having gone on the journey with the filmmakers. I learned nothing I didn't already know about the perils of online relationships and falsifying information through various social media outlets. I would venture that most viewers of Catifsh know this, too, and so it comes to be that the big super-secret reveal of the film (which I would like to add that I am glad, like with any movie, that I went into this film with no knowledge about its content) ultimately falls flat and leaves the viewer not so much with a "wow!" feeling but with a shameful, gross feeling. Which is too bad, I would have liked to get to know Angela and her family and to better understand why she creates such a fairy-tale world that caused her to user her young daughter and lie to her husband. Instead, the filmmakers show their immaturity by not taking us to the genuine depths of the film's real subject (read: Angela) and instead have a false sense of caring about the world that Angela inhabits.




*This was the tipping point for me. I was ready to concede that film worked on me for about 40 minutes and call it a good, but ultimately disappointing, movie; however, when the title cards came up – a trick filmmakers use that almost always feel phony – and told me that Yaniv, a guy I cared nothing about for the 82 minute running time, is still on Facebook made me roll my eyes to the point where I decided to pan the film and be a bit harsher than I probably should have been. As a curiosity, the film is worth seeing.