Catfish

Released by: Universal
Released on: 1/4/2011
Director: Ariel Schulman Henry Joost
Cast: Yaniv Schulman, Angela Wesselman-Pierce
Year: 2010
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The Movie:

Catfish is a documentary film. It is basically a reality-style film. Still there? Good because it's an interesting piece.

A New York City based photographer, Yaniv “Nev” Schulman, had a photo published in a magazine, and soon thereafter received a painting in the mail of the photo he took. The painting was done by an eight-year old girl, Abby, in the mid-Northern part of the United States and the two began a correspondence via Facebook. Nev's filmmaker brother Ariel and his filmmaking partner Henry saw what could make for an interesting story, so began to film Nev every day to document his experience with phone texts, Facebook postings, and phone calls.

Nev started to befriend the older sister of Abby, 19-year old Meagan, which blossomed into an internet romance. Other members of the family, including the mother of the girls, also became part of his Facebook circle of friends. Meagan wrote and recorded songs for Nev, Abby continued to paint pictures and send them, and the relationship between young couple really started to get serious. That's all you're going to get for plot set-up in the review. Any more than that will ruin the story.

The film does a good job of chronicling the growing bond between Meagan and Nev throughout the film without allowing for much chance to be bored. Being an everyday accounting of the life of a regular person and an unseen lover, there's not a whole lot going on visually, but those that assembled the film make a cohesive narrative that doesn't get dull and nicely fills the hour and-a-half running time. It's tough to get more into talking about the movie much more without giving away too much. Movies are a bit like the punch line of a joke. Once a person knows the story, it doesn't have the same impact or intrigue as when you go into the film without knowing much about it.

The look of the film and the sound design are not really worthy of much comment. It looks and sounds like any reality or real life show filmed with a handheld camera looks. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. There are no actors so the performances can't commented on. This sounds like an apology of sorts for not providing much information about the film and this reviewer's opinion of it, but it isn't. It's just that telling too much will ruin the story.

Video/Audio/Extras:

The disc presents the film in 1080p high definition widescreen, with the audio in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. In all honesty, the release on Blu-ray seems foolish. The picture quality varies based on the lighting, and it doesn't look like it was filmed in hi-def. The blacks are pretty grainy as is the general picture at times. The picture looks better when they are in natural lighting (outside), and looks pretty bad at times when the lighting is dark, like in a hotel room for instance. The sound is nice when music is playing, but overpowers the natural sounds (talking, background noise) by way of balance. The music (by Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh) is a lot louder than the dialogue and when the music kicks in it can be a bit of an annoyance, kind of like a commercial on tv. There are no technical issues to mention with either the video or the audio.

There is only one extra and that's a 15 or so minute discussion with the two directors and Nev. They talk about the film and how it impacted them both during and after the filming. This is displayed in 1080i high definition widescreen and looks a lot nicer, picture-wise, than the film itself. The content is interesting enough and doesn't go on for too long. If you liked the film, this feature is a nice bookend to it.

The Final Word:

Catfish is a much more interesting film than the packaging might lead one to believe. The copy has quotes calling it “suspensful” and “gripping”, as well as “jaw-dropping”. It isn't. What it is, is an intriguing look into the lives we've created for ourselves online as compared to our real lives and what kind of effect that can have on us. The extras are slim but the one item is worth watching. This film may not have a whole lot of replay potential, but it warrants a look for sure for those with an interest in seeing what makes other people tick.