Catfish

Plot synopsis:
Young photographer Yaniv "Nev" Schulman lives with his brother Ariel in New York City. Abby Pierce, an 8-year-old child prodigy artist in rural Ishpeming, Michigan, sends Nev a painting of one of his photos. They become Facebook friends, which broadens to include Abby's family: including her mother, Angela (Wesselman); Angela's husband Vince (she uses a photo of Stephen Fogarty); and Abby's attractive older half-sister Megan, who lives in Gladstone, Michigan.
For a documentary, Ariel and Henry Joost film Nev as he begins an online relationship with Megan. She sends him MP3s of song covers she performs for him, but Nev discovers that they are all taken from performances on YouTube. He later finds evidence that Angela and Abby have lied about other details of Abby's art career. Ariel urges Nev to continue the relationship for the documentary, although Nev seems reluctant to continue. The siblings decide to travel to Michigan in order to make an impromptu appearance at the Pierces' house and confront Megan directly. As they arrive at the house, Angela takes some time to answer the door, but is welcoming and seems happy to finally meet Nev in person. She also tells him that she has recently begun chemotherapy for uterine cancer. After leaving multiple messages while trying to call Megan, she drives Nev and Ariel to see Abby herself. While talking with Abby and her friend alone, Nev learns that Abby never sees her sister and rarely paints.
The next morning, Nev wakes up to a text message from Megan saying that she has had a long-standing alcohol problem, and has decided to check into rehab and cannot meet him, which is confirmed by one of Megan's Facebook friends, but Nev realizes that this is likely another lie from Angela. After meeting with the family back at their house, Angela admits that the pictures of Megan were of a family friend, that her daughter Megan really is in rehab downstate and that Angela had really painted each of the paintings that she had sent to Nev. Nev thus realizes that while believing he was talking to Megan, it was really Angela posing as her with an alternate Facebook account and mobile phone. As he sits for a drawing, Angela confesses that the various Facebook profiles were all maintained by her, but that through her friendship with Nev she had reconnected with the world of painting, which had been her passion before she sacrificed her career to marry Vince—who has two severely mentally disabled children who require constant care. Through a conversation with Vince himself, the siblings learn that Angela had told him (falsely) that Nev was paying for her paintings, and that he had encouraged her to seize the opportunity to have him as a patron.
Vince, talking with Nev, tells the story about how live cod were shipped along with catfish in the same tanks to keep the cod active, and thus ensure the quality of the fish. He further explains this as a metaphor on how there are people in everyone's lives who keep them alert, active, and always thinking. It is implied that he believes Angela to be such a person.
Some time after, Nev receives a package labeled as being from Angela herself; it is the completed drawing that she labored over during their meeting, although Nev seems ambivalent in his feelings about it.
On-screen text then informs the viewer that Angela did not have cancer, there was no Megan at Dawn Farms, and she doesn't know the girl in the pictures. Over the course of their nine-month correspondence, Angela and Nev exchanged more than 1,500 messages. It was revealed later on that the girl in the pictures was Aimee Gonzales, a professional model and photographer, who lives in Vancouver, Washington with her husband and two children. In October 2008, two years subsequent to the events, Ronald, one of Vince's twin sons, has died. Angela deactivated her 15 other profiles and changed her Facebook profile to a picture of herself, and now has a website to promote herself as an artist. Nev is still on Facebook and has more than 732 friends, including Angela.

Tags: thought-provoking, mystery, dramatic, flashback

Review:
As Nev becomes involved with her and her family, however, he begins to notice certain inconsistencies with the perfect lives they lead online.Much of the build-up feels stagey, and surely something is amiss, because either filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman are considerably more talented directors than they portray themselves as, or they are not being entirely forthcoming.
?This was an intriguing watch, playful and suspenseful and by the end, full of heart that is a far cry from the gripping thriller documentary style movie portrayed in the trailer (which I saw after at one reviewers request) but none the less, I enjoyed the movie for piecing together something many of us have done ...
The documentary does make some strong points, such as "Who is this person?" "Who can I trust?" "What's real, and what's falsehood?" It makes one wonder what length some will go to hide the truth, and wonder what they would do in a situation like Nev's.The film starts off rather charming, but eventually the film ends up becoming so nervously unsettling, and emotionally devastating that it's painful to watch.
Or was this an authentic documentary showcasing one person's real life experience on the site, and having his brother and friend film it all?
Unlike films (like the comparably classic MAN BITES DOG) that explore similar themes of manipulation and non-fiction/fiction blurring with intelligence and dignity, these filmmakers have taken a story with a real humane potential and bankrupted their morals to create a sensational tabloid-like experience, more likely to titillate certain members of the Youtube Generation/make a few bucks/create some buzz.
There are some out of focus shots that are meant to suggest a "raw footage" feel, but were obviously on purpose.I would probably had liked this movie much better if it had been released as a movie shot in documentary style and they didn't have this whole charade about it being real and about how awesome the ending is supposed to be.
I hadn't heard much about Catfish until it was recommended by a friend of a friend - so I didn't see any trailers or hear any hype except for the tag line.However I was still a bit disappointed - this movie, marketed as a documentary, really had a forced attempt at naturalism and I never once accepted it as based in fact.It was also one of the most anticlimactic films I've come across!
New York City photographer Nev Schulman's brother Ariel is a filmmaker, so when Nev begins a friendship with an 8 year old girl from Michigan named Abby, and her 19 year old sister, Megan, via Facebook, Ariel and Henry Joost start documenting it.
Yes, Catfish is very Hitchcockian like the trailer states, which seems to be upsetting people after having seen the movie because they thought that it was going to take a drastically dark turn.
Catfish, the debut documentary from filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, has been hailed as "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never directed," and toting it as something "you won't be able to shake for days." That's at least what the filmmakers chose to put in the trailer.We follow Nev, a young photographer living in New York.
In the trailer, there is a moment when they show Nev walking up to the house of the "Facebook family." The picture fades, revealing Chris Bumbray at JoBlo.com's response to the film:"The final forty minutes of the film will take you on an emotional roller coaster that you won't be able to shake for days."To intensify the impact of these words, the filmmakers use some of the music that Mark Mothersbaugh wrote for the film, a great score in its own right, but inappropriate for this film.
What you get with Catfish is a creepy story about how communication and technology has evolved in such a way that people can virtually do anything they want to do.For those who haven't seen the trailer, DO NOT WATCH IT.
First, it examines the character's lives in a way that really feels reliable to the audience.The second thing it does well is give a bit of a face to most parent's fears about social media, but it does it in a not abductor rape kind of way.All in all I enjoyed it's plot very much, although personally I'm not a fan of the hand held "amateur documentary" style of film making.
The 2010 American documentary film,"Catfish", directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, involves Ariel's brother, Nev, as he fantasizes about a "friendship" with a beautiful young woman on Facebook.
I've never been catfished and I can't understand why anyone waste all this time and energy into being this different person?So after Catfish: The Movie explored Nev's story, he joins his brothers buddy Max, who was not in the film, to travel across America to help people in the same predicament as he was.Nev and Max make a good team; they would have to with all the together time these two would have filming this and Nev seems to be the hopeless romantic of the pair while Max is the realist.One thing that kind of annoyed me, they're always try to find some deeper meaning to the catfish.
Most times there is a story but sometimes they try to dig to get one when sometimes, people are just assholes!As the show started airing and word starting getting around, I started to wonder about the truthfulness of the stories in the later season; how much of it was really people in need or people just looking for their 15 minutes of fame.I don't think you can have a 'relationship' with someone without having seen them, let alone one episode where a couple were 'engaged' without even meeting each other.And that takes me to my next point: Webcam not working?
One aspect I really enjoyed was the contrasting of the music between the beginning and the end of the movie, it's a light tune at the beginning and dark at the end Catfish was a great and wonderful thrill ride and it was a decent documentary with interesting plot lines and a great story..
Catfish follows the story of Yaniv Schulman (Nev) who agrees to be the centrepiece of a documentary for his two friends who track his online friendship with Abby, a young painter who sends him paintings.
Soon however he is introduced to her family online and Nev starts to build a strong online friendship with Abby's sister Megan, only something is amiss.This documentary is something many people can relate to in this modern age of social networking.
Through searching through people's friends on Facebook to analysing people's own recorded songs to those that have been implemented from other websites, but more so the ability to simply use other people's photographs for your own personal use is something quite scary, and yet people do it for their own personal reasons, and in the essence of this picture, we are watching people's emotions tested in this marvel of online story telling.There are many boards and forums depicting the true nature of this documentary, whether it is faked, scripted etc.
And through this Catfish is a very entertaining story that depicts the technical age through some wonderful and varied editing, picking up on Google, Sat Navs, Facebook etc and is quite different from anything that's been done before.This film spurned a TV show in which Nev and his brother travel across America to meet people and to give them help in meeting their online romance, which for the record is shorter and usually more interesting than simply watching Nev and his hairy chest for over an hour.Nevertheless this is unique and if you've done the whole online thing, it makes it quite interesting to see someone else go through it to..
First, let's clear something up: despite some of the marketing for this film, it is not and does not want to be anything like a real-life BLAIR WITCH type documentary.
The trailer made me think it was yet another faux horror documentary film like The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity, but this in nothing like that; it is more of a suspenseful drama about online relationships and the way we communicate virtually with our friends.
I think Detroit News movie critic, Adam Graham, best described this film when he said it ¨tells a devastating story that couldn't be more relevant to our times; who we are in real life versus the way we present ourselves online.¨ I think the best way to enjoy this documentary is not knowing much about it before hand so I won't give too much information away about the plot.
Just watch the film first and then read the reviews because Catfish will probably be enjoyed more the less you've heard about it.Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost are aspiring filmmakers who decide to make a film about Ariel's brother, Nev, who is beginning an interesting online relationship with a family he met in the virtual world.
Henry, Ariel, and Nev decide to travel from New York to Michigan and surprise Angela and her family in order to try to make sense of everything or uncover their lie.I do not want to give away anything that happens later in the film but that is basically the set up that the trailer gives us.
I'd heard a lot of good comments about Catfish but it failed to live up to expectations.From watching the trailer, we are made to believe that the film is thrilling when in fact it is very slow to develop.Also, it's hard to tell when the actors are acting and when they are behaving "naturally" because it seems like they are often faking emotions when the film has been marketed as a true story.The reason why I didn't give it 1/10 (which I was tempted to do!) is because the theme of the film- how an internet relationship is not always what it seems- whilst not the most innovative of ideas is still a intriguing one.I do think the way the main actors behave in the 2nd half of the film to be disrespectful and tasteless (you will understand if you bother to watch this film but I wouldn't recommend it)and I think that their arrogance makes it difficult to sympathise with them when they discover all is not what it seems (with regards to the internet relationship) All in all, I think that the film had a brilliant theme which failed to translate into a top-notch, inspiring film.
I would have appreciated this movie had it been a documentary solely about the young artist with whom the photographer dude exchanges art & thoughts - but in this narrow-minded narrative (i.e. two arty "hipsterish" New York brothers documenting their utter amazement that the Midwest actually is inhibited by REAL, thinking, "beautiful" and creative people) this documentary (but NOT the blooming artiste) is, in fact, both awkward and feeble.The main problem is the (well-meant, from the parents point of view, I am sure) anonymization of the girl who provides the art and letters for the film.
Like last year's "Paranormal Activity" (2009), it's a film that feels real because it is shot with a hand-held camera, and there are no special effects or dramatic music to tell you when you should feel scared or not.To tell you, the reader of this review, too much about the movie would really ruin the hold it puts on you as you're watching it.
Meagan's Facebook profile picture is gorgeous, and it is when Nev's brother, Ariel, and his friend Henry Joost, start documenting Nev's pursuit of a woman he doesn't know that the story begins.It is also when Nev visits Michigan to meet Meagan in person that you really feel how creepy and disturbing the story ultimately becomes.
seriously, if someone recommends this movie to you, and you do what i did and check out the rating....it's a 7...so you think, well IMDb is normally true to form and something that high must be worth a watch.....really, it isn't, don't waste your time, it's 90 minutes of my life i won't get back while i sat basically waiting for something, anything, to happen...and it didn't somewhere there is a point trying to be made, but the fact it's neither made out to be a documentary or a movie clouds the matter....there is no suspense and when you do realise the truth, for want of a better word you sit there thinking, is that it????
There's no way Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost just randomly began filming Ariel's brother Yaniv and his online friendship with a 9-year-old artist and it happened to evolve into this fascinating story, right?
Well, whatever you think of the movie's self-involved documentary style, what it reveals about the online world we live in is both culturally and humanly powerful, and the more you surrender to the truth of it, the better it is.You don't need to know much going in because it's a documentary, but Yaniv "Nev" Schulman is a photographer in New York City who specializes in dance photography.
Nev starts to become really close with Megan, which adds a layer of romance into this online thriller of a story.The Internet and social media have never been more prevalent in a film as they are in "Catfish." Schulman and Joost also employ techniques to remind us of how steeped in the digital world we are.
I'm really glad I did because I found a really interesting film about love and deception that has the added bonus of being a true story (although some say not).Nev Schulman is a photographer who lives in New York.
i found this documentary strangely compelling.it's about a guy who meets a girl who looks like she could be his special someone online.but eventually he notices some things aren't adding up.so he,his brother and friend decide to investigate further.i won't reveal anymore of the plot,but suffice to say what they do next leads them to uncover some interesting things.this is not a thriller,like the trailer implies.it's more of a drama than anything else.but it is worth watching,in my opinion.it sort of reveals a bit about the human condition and the need some of us have to be wanted.i thought it moved along at a good pace.for me,Catfish is a 7/10.
However, I guess this one would complete the trilogy and is supposedly a true-life example of the dark-side of excess (shall we say) – Facebooking!According to the movie summary, filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost document a story involving Ariel's brother, Nev, a 24-year-old New York-based photographer, and Abby, from rural Michigan who contacts Nev via Facebook, asking for permission to make a painting from one of his photographs.
The film starts as a documentary about the friendship between a photographer, Nev, in his 20s becoming friends with an 8 year old painter, Abby, that does recreations of his pictures.
There's a lot of hype around at the moment surrounding new Hollywood blockbuster The Social Network and whilst it may be popular, the real Facebook film you should be looking out for is Catfish.The film which has caused a stir at America's Sundance Film Festival and The BFI London Film Festival this year was created by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost in 2007, when they decided to document Nev Schulman's online experience as he gradually became friends with a family in Michigan via Facebook.
Whether or not it is fictional does not affect my feelings about this movie, but it certainly did not feel like it was entirely a true story all the time.How well do you know your Facebook friends?
Sad, suspenseful, and dramatic, Catfish is never short of amazing, making it easily the best documentary of 2010.*Note: The summary above and the trailers do not spoil the movie's plot, however it is recommended the film should be seen with as little knowledge as possible..
The truth is "Catfish" tells the true life story of Nev Schulman, a regular guy who like all of us enjoys chatting and mingling with people online through various social networks such as Facebook.
What Ariel and Nev soon unravel is not only fascination but a rather interesting look at the relationship between people today and the internet.I know you guys and gals expected me to give away the film in the above paragraph but the truth is I can't do that.
Catfish is a documentary that follows the Facebook-born Internet relationship between Nev Schulman (one of the directors' brother) and Melody, her mother Angela and the rest of her family.
This is actually quite a hard movie to review without giving away too much of the story but I shall give it my best shot.Catfish is a documentary following 3 men- Henry, Ariel and in particular Yaniv aka Nev. Nev is a published photographer and one day receives an excellent painting of one of the photos that he has been commissioned for from a young girl Abby.
The 'Facebook family' as he so aptly calls them.Henry and Ariel, Nev's brother, are small-time film producers and notice this internet relationship developing.
Without spoiling anything, young film maker Ariel Schulman charts his brother Nev's online relationship with a girl named Abby, which began with his receipt of her little sister's painted impression of one his photographs.To say more is to spoil it, although as I say, I don't think there is a great deal to spoil; aside from a couple of small details as to why certain things are happening (details which surprised and endeared me to the film a bit), I really did see everything coming.
The documentary is all about how their relationship evolves and the events which takes place after Nev decides to really go and see this girl in person.There are several twists to the story and knowing it was true events you may starts to wonder how fragile we all can be in the online community.
Still the movie, like most fake documentaries (at least the current fad of them), is entertaining and worth the watch.The film takes place at the end of 2007 and revolves around a 24 year old New York photographer named Yaniv Schulman.