A big twist or a shocking ending doesn’t make a movie great. But if the story’s compelling enough to draw you in and take you through the twists - and if those twists are truly unexpected – it can be something truly amazing. But when it’s a documentary, it has the ability to change the way you view life, society, and, in the case of Catfish, what it means to have a relationship in our modern world.
This movie isn’t the most professionally-made documentary I’ve ever seen. The protagonist isn’t overly interesting, the shots aren’t amazing, and the flow of the plot seems to stop and start. But what it has, what makes it better than almost everything else I’ve seen this year, is a truly mind blowing story that hits home for anybody with a Facebook page, anybody who communicates through the internet, or anybody who’s ever “met” somebody without actually seeing them in the flesh.
The story centers around Nev Schulman, a working Manhattan photographer and roommate with his filmmaker brother Ariel. So when Nev begins receiving amazing paintings from an 8-year-old art prodigy named Abby, Ariel was there with the cameras. At the beginning the story feels too slow and sometimes you get annoyed with Nev, especially when he falls into some preternatural long distance relationship with Abby’s sister over the Internet. But all annoyance melts into absolute fascination with the modern concept of relationships and connectivity as Nev’s relationship advances. As Nev gets in deeper, the story begins to take off.
At times scary, at times funny, at times romantic and finally, at times completely shocking, CATFISH is a roller coaster guaranteed to change your perspective and to hit you hard like the great movie it is.
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