catfish paper

Catfish movie review

Now a day’s everywhere you look, there are more people using technology. But now society has even come up with a new way to use the internet. No one has time to go on dates the old fashioned way; people go online to meet another for some type of relationship. There’s a catch though, internet is not as safe as we may think it is. Almost one in eight youth ages discovered that someone they were communicating with online was an adult pretending to be much younger. Catfish is a documentary film based on a similar situation. There are twists and turns you could never have imagined. A man in his twenties starts a friendship online with a talented eight year old girl named Abby, all because of the amazing paining she painted from a picture Ned took. Closer to the end you find out the brutal truth about Abby and her family, that makes the audience gasp in anger.

Filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost decided to create a film, type of a documentary about Nev, Ariel’s brother. Nev was a twenty-four year old man living in New York, who was a photographer. They started shooting the film in 2007 and the movie came out in 2010. As Nev’s life is being filmed, there isn’t too much shocking going on in the beginning just picture taking. Then suddenly Nev receives an email from an eight year old girl who painted a portrait of the picture Nev had shot. Later Nev to only find out he has been living a lie.

Nev and Abby email each other back and forth, creating a friendship. Later he finds out Abby has an older sister Megan. Turns out Megan and Nev have a lot in common. For the first time Nev experiences a long term relationship, and he is loving it. After a few months he starts to get suspicious and wants to know if there really is a Megan or not. The mother of Abby and Megan also talks to Nev over the phone and from the paintings sent to Nev the mother is a beautiful woman.

After all the suspicious feelings Nev and his crew decide to surprise Abby and her family, and fly to Chicago then drive to Michigan. Right off the bat they visit where Megan said she lives. Turns out she didn’t even live there, but mail for a Megan did come there. After the crew decides to make a stop at Abby’s house and ask a few questions, to make things cleared up. Then once they finally sit down to get an answer, you’ll want to scratch your eyes out by the disgust.

After watching the movie myself and going through all the intense moments I really loved the movie. There were up and down moments, and parts of the movie where you couldn’t look away. This movie really showed me that the internet is not the best way to meet people online.