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Catfish (film)

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Catfish
Directed byHenry Joost
Ariel Schulman
Produced byAndrew Jarecki
Marc Smerling
Henry Joost
Ariel Schulman
CinematographyHenry Joost
Ariel Schulman
Yaniv Schulman
Edited byZachary Stuart-Pontier
Production
company
Distributed byRogue
Release dates
  • January 22, 2010 (2010-01-22) (Sundance)
  • September 17, 2010 (2010-09-17) (Limited release)
Running time
86 minutes
CountryTemplate:Film US
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1,790,600

Catfish is a 2010 American documentary [1][2][3][4][5] involving a man being filmed by his friends as he builds a romantic relationship on the social networking website Facebook with an attractive girl, and the mysterious results when they all go to visit her.

Plot

Young New York photographer Nev Schulman lives with brother Ariel and friend Henry Joost in New York. Abby Pierce, an eight-year-old child prodigy artist in rural Michigan, sends him a painting of one of his photographs. They become Facebook friends in a network that broadens to Abby's family, including her mother, Angela; Angela's husband; and Abby's attractive older half-sister Megan, a songwriter.[6][7][8]

For a documentary, Ariel and Henry film Nev as he begins a long-distance relationship with Megan, conducted over the Internet and phone calls, and they discuss meeting in person. She sends him MP3s of her songs, but Nev discovers that they are all taken from live performances on YouTube. He later finds evidence that Megan and Abby have made other false claims.[6][8]

Ariel urges his upset brother to continue the relationship for the documentary. The siblings and Henry travel to Michigan to confront Megan.[6][8] They discover that Angela is a housewife who cares for two disabled stepsons. Although Angela's husband exists, Megan does not and Abby is not a child prodigy. Angela is the artist, and created Megan as one of several internet aliases to support the fiction, which her family knows nothing about.[6]

Production

Angela used personal and family pictures that Vancouver, Washington photographer Aimee Gonzales had posted on Facebook to portray Megan and her family. Catfish's filmmakers compensated Gonzalez for her involuntary appearance in the documentary, and she participated in publicity for the film.[9] A photograph Angela described as a son, Alex, is that of rapper Joshua Paul Liimatta, also known as "The Sisu Kid".[10]

Release

The film had a limited release[11] on September 17, 2010.[12] The Rogue Pictures unit of Relativity Media acquired Catfish in a bidding war versus Paramount Pictures, after Brett Ratner endorsed the film.[13]

Reception

The film received a 76% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the site's consensus being "Catfish may tread the line between real-life drama and crass exploitation a little too unsteadily for some viewers' tastes, but its timely premise and tightly wound mystery make for a gripping documentary."

At the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, Alison Willmore of IFC described it as a "sad, unusual love story."[6] John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter called Catfish "jaw-dropping" and "crowd-pleasing" but said that it "will require clever marketing in order to preserve the surprises at its core."[7] Kyle Buchanan of Movieline asked if "easily the most buzzed-about documentary" at Sundance had "a truth problem," and reported that an audience member questioned whether it was a documentary at all.[8] Roger Ebert referred to these questions as a "severe cross-examination" and stressed his belief that "everyone in the film is exactly as the film portrays them."[14] The filmmakers stated that although Morgan Spurlock and Zach Galifianakis also questioned Catfish's veracity, the film is "100 percent real."[15]

References

  1. ^ Debruge, Peter (January 23, 2010). "Catfish Review". Variety. Retrieved October 1, 2010.
  2. ^ Scott, A. O. (September 16, 2010). "Movie Review: Catfish". The New York Times. Retrieved October 1, 2010.
  3. ^ Goldstein, Patrick (January 26, 2010). "Sundance fever: What 'Catfish' says about our 24/7 video age". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 1, 2010.
  4. ^ Brody, Richard. "Catfish". The New Yorker. Retrieved October 1, 2010.
  5. ^ Lopez, John (January 25, 2010). "Sundance Rocks the Docs". Vanity Fair. Retrieved October 1, 2010.
  6. ^ a b c d e Willmore, Allison. ""Catfish," a virtual romance." IFC, 23 January 2010.
  7. ^ a b DeFore, John. "Catfish -- Film Review" The Hollywood Reporter, 28 January 2010.
  8. ^ a b c d Buchanan, Kyle. "Does Sundance Sensation Catfish Have a Truth Problem?" Movieline, 29 January 2010.
  9. ^ Carlin, Peter Ames (2010-10-06). "Aimee Gonzales stars in 'Catfish' -- without being in the movie". Oregonian. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
  10. ^ Liimatta, Joshua Paul. "It's now confirmed that my picture is indeed used for Angela's fictional son "Alex" in the movie #Catfish". Twitter. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
  11. ^ Frankel, Daniel. "Affleck's 'Town' Is the Talk of the Box Office with $8.4M Friday". TheWrap. Retrieved 2010-09-18.
  12. ^ Bierly, Mandy (2010-09-03). "'Catfish' clips: A movie you'll be talking about". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2010-09-05.
  13. ^ Sperling, Nicole (2010-02-04). "Brett Ratner: The ultimate cheerleader for Sundance doc 'Catfish'". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2010-09-05.
  14. ^ Ebert, Roger."[1]" Chicago Sun-Times, 22 September, 2010.
  15. ^ Brodie, Anne. "'Catfish' Creators Tell Us if It's Real or Not". Moviefone. Retrieved 2010-09-16.
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