Genuine surprise is such a rare commodity in cinema these days that, when a film manages to offer something unexpected, it can be very exciting. Catfish begins by chronicling the burgeoning Facebook relationship between a male twenty-something New York photographer and an 8-year-old girl with artistic ambitions whose mother contacted the photographer after seeing his work in a magazine. To say anymore would spoil the fun.
I did my best to avoid trailers and advance word beforehand – what I’d heard were statements along the lines of “it’s kind of what you think it is, but it’s also much more than that”, a description I’m comfortable repeating here. The film’s veracity has been the subject of much debate, but I can’t imagine anyone who’s seen the film doubting the events were real – some of the stuff here is simply unfake-able.
It could be argued that a film like this became inevitable the moment Facebook was created and, whilst it’s a fascinating exploration of the popular social network (unlike The Social Network, this actually looks at the way people use Facebook), it’s also an incredibly tense thriller. It’s not hard to imagine why the two directors were recently hired to direct the third entry in the Paranormal Activity ‘found footage’ horror franchise.
Catfish is the first film in a while that absolutely demands to be seen for reasons other than marketing hype – I was utterly enthralled from the first frame to the last.
