Catfish

Yaniv Schulman, Angela Wesselman

Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman

Rating: C

In late 2007, Yaniv Schulman began corresponding with an eight-year-old girl, Abby, and her mother after seeing her paintings she drew based off his photographs. Yaniv made regular phone calls with the mother, Angela, and began getting involved with the family, making contact with Angela's oldest daughter, Megan, and talking on Facebook. After eight months of getting to know each other, Yaniv starts to become suspicious when a song Megan claimed she wrote sounded exactly like another artist. Yaniv decided to visit Megan, Abby, and Angela in Michigan to get the story straight.

"Catfish" is a real documentary and sheds light on how easy people can deceive you through means of Facebook and phone calls. Yaniv would call Megan fairly regularly and they had a romantic relationship through talking on the phone and texting, yet they have never met each other. Yaniv starts to put the pieces together after investigating Abby's art gallery and finds out the building is vacant.

I think in most situations, people wouldn't have handled Yaniv's situation as calmly as he did. Yaniv finds out that Angela is the one who painted the pictures and while Abby and Megan are really her daughters, Angela hadn't talked to Megan in years. It's sad and it makes you pity Angela for the life she lives and for making up such a huge story. She led Yaniv on to think Megan was really someone interested in him but it makes you pity her because she must be a desperate person to do that. Yaniv doesn't think so. He spends a few days with her, getting the story straight but never expressing anything other than sympathy.

I'm not quite sure why anyone would want to watch this documentary. It's a little slow and in the beginning there's not much of a point to watch it until you get wrapped up in the drama. I wouldn't recommend watching this unless you want to experience the drama yourself.