Catfish Review

Catfish is a TRUE life documentary that film makers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost began to film in late 2007. The documentary filmed was following the story of Ariel’s brother, Nev, who had started an interesting relationship with a family over the internet, who he nicknames, “the Facebook family”.

After talking to some of them on the phone and receiving paintings from them for months, Nev decides to pay a visit to the family he only knows from pictures, texts and phone calls, but ends up with an unsettling result. Catfish is an amazingly shocking film and it is so hard to review it without ruining it all for you.

During the initial screenings of the film, Ariel Schulman stated that famous names such as Morgan Spurlock, the star of documentary Super Size Me, believed Catfish to be fake, saying to Ariel after the showing that “it was the best fake documentary he had ever seen”. The Schulman brothers stand by the fact it is 100% true and Ariel and was quoted saying:

“It felt [too perfect] to us also, as we were making it. We’re very lucky. We look back at our experience and everything leads to [the moment we discovered things were not what they seemed]. As filmmakers we were ready; we felt like we spent our lives preparing to be ready, and it just happened to be me who shares the office with my brother and my producing partner.”

In my opinion after seeing the film, it just has to be true. If it is not true then the people in the documentary, especially Nev Schulman and the mother of the family he speaks with, Angela Wesselman-Pierce, are two of the best actors I have ever witnessed in a film. It just has to be real life, once you see it you will understand what I mean.

As for what happens in the documentary, I actually could not believe what I was witnessing unfold on the screen in front of me. It takes what you think is going to happen whilst you are watching the film, but then absolutely just multiplies it by a million.

I was a huge fan of Super Size Me, but this leapfrogs that to the top of my documentaries list now. I would definitely recommend to everyone.

Below is the trailer, which I suggest you watch and see just why I wanted to see this film so bad, and after watching the trailer, get hold of the documentary and watch it! You will not be disappointed.