Catfish

***Spoiler***Movie Review: Catfish

            The Directors of Catfish created this film in  2007, they are Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost. They released this film in September 10^th 2010. Their inspiration was sparked by Aieral Shcumans real life brother Nev Shculman. Also this movie captures the real life happenings of Megan Faccio and Melody C. Roscher. This film starts in the area of New York, and then travels to Michigan, to capture the truth behind Abby and her family.

The movie begins with technology, we see the directors of the movie filming Nev, who starts by introducing the audience to Abby. Nev uses facebook to connect with Abby as well as her older sister Megan. We see that Nev is a photographer. This is the connection between him and the eight year old girl. Through Nev’s pictures, Abby is able to create art. Nev becoming amazed, as Abby begins to send him paintings, tries to get more involved. His brother Rel focuses on filming Nev. As Nev becomes suspicious of Abby and her family, we see a major turn in the story. Nev uses U tube to unmask Megan. He is sure that she and her mother are lying about her musical talent. As Nev further investigates, he agrees they should travel to Michigan. They begin by going to Megan’s as they quickly realize she does not live there. Next Nev and everyone else decide to go the home of Abby.

            As they meet Angela she is obviously not the same person as her profile showed on facebook. Neither is Abby’s father. It does not faze Angela that her identity has been exposed to Nev. I was surprised to find that Abby actually did exist at all. As Nev meets her for the first time, he is thrilled, Abby is not that motivated. It is apparent that she has not been collaborating with Nev herself. We see Nev make a connection with the family anyway, so it was hard for me to believe he actually had the courage to face Angela. I can see why any real person would do this however. He became so involved through the communication and paintings, he felt lied to and that he was. I commend him for his courage; he knew someone needed to confront Angela’s behavior. We finally see the film close after Angela reveals her version of the truth, this happens as she paints a portrait of Nev.

            I really liked that this was all based on actual events; however I did not always believe what I was seeing. Sometimes the characters came off as made up, like Angela. When she told Nev that he had beautiful eyes as he was confronting her, it seemed like something a normal person would not usually do. However it could be considered a good thing because it shows how connected Megan, Angela, and Nev really were before the truth was revealed. This would help people understand why Nev would drive over there and do this in the first place. Instead of just the sake of the production of the film, there was an emotional connection between them. I did not like watching Angela, I felt like the movie made her the antagonist. I mean she was in fact that, but I would not want to embarrass someone like this.