It's 2007. Yaniv Schulman gets one of his photos in the papers. Then he is contacted by 8 year old Abby from Michigan who sends him a painting of the photo. As his friendship with the young girl over the internet grows, he gets to know her mother Angela, father Vince, and beautiful older half-sister Megan. Yaniv's brother Ariel and Henry Joost film him for a documentary. As Yaniv falls for Megan, cracks start appearing in the story. Yaniv goes on a search for the truth.If taken on face value, this has an intriguing story of the modern internet world. There are problems with this idea. It's hard to take this on face value when the whole point is not to take things on face value. It's obvious from the start that the internet relationship is based on false grounds. The question for me throughout watching the movie is how real Yaniv is actually being. The whole movie could be catfishing the audience. In the end, it's difficult to take this completely on face value. On the other hand, the reveal of Angela and her psychological story are actually quite interesting.

Taken at face value, this is a documentary about how a young photographer was deceived by a lonely housewife... how he gently confronts her, discovers her desperate existence and gets a tearful apology.The way it unfolds is engaging. We do allow this woman some latitude. All of us can relate in some degree to the deep loneliness of a simple kind and the equally simple need for escape via fantasy.What we cannot allow is the deeper deception from the other side, the side of the filmmakers. This kind of documentary is becoming more common now, and that's too bad because it is a hard form to manage. The structure inserts the reporter as a key agent in the story, making it all but impossible to not be overtly manipulative.In this case, these three guys knew the Facebook character was fake, and decided to exploit it. They got lucky in some respects, but in others they made conscious decisions to extend the the story for the film's sake. I can understand this, but we have to be fair. There is manipulation and deception on both sides here. The drive in both cases is the same: to make a good enough story to hold a situation that selfishly sustains. They pretend to deliver insight on only one side of this.

wow, this did surprise me, not the story or really its enactment - but the ending. it was so thoroughly unexpected to find that the best most profound words should be given to the least developed character. it is difficult to say anything about this movie without giving everything away suffice to say it was so wonderful to receive such insight at the end from such an unexpected source. and that i think is what pushes this film above its peers. here is a story that we have all heard before, all experienced. the internet is a treacherous beast and frankly we believe our virtual friends at our peril. but the story doesn't end there. firstly we see who these people are who decide to invade our world with their make believe. and we find that perhaps they are also special as we learn just what might make them behave in this way, and then we find that really the people who are the losers are not the people who make the stuff up, but us for never believing in them face to face in the first place. oh this is a wonderful film, and i hope that everyone can watch it.

Catfish is a great film about trust and online anonymity and how it can be taken to advantage. This film follows the relationship between Yaniv (Nev) and Abby, an 8-year old girl who loves to paint. These two individuals expand their knowledge of one another.This film is great with some good character moments especially with Angela near the end, I love how the filmmakers chose and observational take to make us seem like we are following Nev's life. Everything in the film feels real because this could easily happen to other people and it probably does. Nev takes it one step further by surprise visiting the family. Catfish is a heart-wrenching film done in a very good way. 8/10 Watch it.