This is one of those festival films which got a lot of buzz, got picked up by a distributor, and then baffled the suits on how to market the film to anybody. Catfish premiered at Sundance last year by virtually unknown filmmakers with little fanfare but gained a lot of attention as it screened. The logo and trailer being show to the general public have almost nothing to do with the actual movie. And neither will this review…This film is very hard to review because once you get into what the film is really about, you ruin the movie. So I’ll try not to spoil it and talk around the plot as much as possible.
Catfish is a documentary about a New York photographer, Nev Schulman. One day, he receives a painting in the mail of one of the pictures that he took. From there, he began a virtual relationship with this painter who turns out to be a little eight year old prodigy named Abby. Nev shared an office space with his brother and friend who happen to be filmmakers. They decided to film what was going on and stumbled on an intriguing story since everything isn’t what it seems…and that’s about all I can give away of what Catfish is about. It’s an alright documentary that was put together pretty well but doesn’t have much substance. It takes a few interesting and heavy subjects but in a serendipitous way that just leaves you curious.
Many argue that this isn’t really a documentary and that the filmmakers knew what was going on the whole time. But in the end, it’s you, the audience, that has to decide. Personally, I think a lot of it was staged because a few events just don’t quite add up. I wouldn’t go out of my way to see this film but it’ll keep you busy for an hour and a half. If you’re into the subject matter which is primarily online social networks, then you may like what you get from this.
Luckily, since this review has to be so short, my screening had a small Q&A session with the filmmakers of Catfish, Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, as well as the “star” of the documentary: Nev Schulman. When asked what they did on the film, Ariel answered, “Everything,” Henry answered, “Everything else,” and Nev said, “Almost nothing.” The filmmakers saw Nev corresponding with Abby (the painter) and thought it would be an cute interesting festival short. Typically, the filmmakers work for corporations making ads and promo videos so for fun, they film themselves with small cameras.
Nev is a compulsive, headstrong, don’t ask questions and just do it kind of guy. He always seemed to get himself into some kind of trouble. His brother became a filmmaker in college and decided to just follow Nev knowing that he’ll just get in trouble again. They described Nev as a “documentary subject for hire.” So after following these virtual correspondence for months, they found themselves in a deeper story that they could turn into a full length documentary. They said they actually had enough footage to make a multi-hour miniseries.
When talking about the marketing of the film, they noted that the logo was a bloody fish. Even the name was given to the film just a day before it premiered at Sundance. Some alternate titles that they were throwing around were: Nev’s Internet Girlfriend, Facebook Family, Michigan Impossible, and It’s Complicated…but obviously that last one got taken by Alec Baldwin. At this point, they have very little say on how the distributor markets the film. They did, however, add the little cursor to give it a somewhat online computer feel since that’s what the movie is actually about…or is it?
There are still a few advance screenings you can find on our Catfish Advance Screening List and keep an eye on twitter.
Tags: Catfish, Henry Joost, Nev Schulman, Rel Schulman, Sundance
Matthew Fong created advancescreenings.com and is the lead contributor. He watches every type of movie and will try almost anything twice. You can follow him on twitter here: @matthewfong
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