It was a real friendship. - Nev
Catfish is one of the most unnervingly poignant films to come along in years. It captures that odd,
unspeakable ennui of our current social landscape so perfectly that it scares
me. This is a film that wouldn't have the same resonance had it been made even
five years ago. And surely, it won't be viewed in the same light even two years
from now. It's a story that is so intrinsically in the moment - that deals so
precisely with the now - I can't shake
it from my head, no matter how crass, exploitative, or shallow it may seem on the surface.
In less
than two decade's time, the internet has managed to completely upend the way the world thinks, acts, and works. And in less than one decade's time, Facebook has managed to not only alter our methods of social interaction, but inherently redefine our cultural perceptions
of what friendship is, what is should be, and what it could be. It's as if our
social identities had sat on the cusp of some kind of nervous breakdown, some
sort of jaded flirtation with an insipidity that could only be revived with a
true game-changing, landscape-shifting invention. So it's no surprise that a
film like Catfish would be birthed
from that very cloud of uncertainty and longing. Take note everyone: this is
our sad journey towards understanding this new social playing field; and it is
not a smooth one.
The film
starts off as innocently as any romantic drama in recent memory. A young man in New York, Nev, begins a platonic correspondence with Abby, a young girl in rural Michigan with an uncanny flair for painting Nev's photographs. Nev is flattered; and in return, Abby makes a friend in the big city. Naturally,
Nev soon meets Abby's entire family - all through Facebook, no doubt. And this
is when he's introduced to Abby's older sister, Megan, a singing, dancing,
animal-loving woman of his dreams. He's instantly smitten. And so is she.
What's
presented in the first two acts of Catfish
only reveals the tip of the iceberg. Surely, I won’t discuss the ending here;
but suffice it to say that the final act of this deliciously turbulent story
was exactly what I expected and yet nothing I could have predicted. It was supremely
disturbing yet compassionate, maddening yet heartbreaking. It presented an
intimately raw portrait of people searching for emotional connection in this
21st-century world, an unbridled flirtation with a fantasy that was bound to
disappoint, and an innate yearning for something inherently better than what is. And before the
credits rolled, it managed to allegorize the tumultuous, ambiguous, and
frankly, sad nature of our current social landscape in a way no film has in
recent memory.
There's
an odd irony to the emblematic yet simultaneous timelessness of
this story. I couldn't help but think back to romantic courtships of generations
past, of hand-written love letters, of individuals truly understanding one
another's thoughts and emotions and feelings before anything physical. I
thought about the nature of knowing someone
fully, of appreciating the honesty and vulnerability that can only be gleaned
by looking someone directly in the eye. I thought about how people must've
spoke to one another before everything became distillations of email accounts,
online profiles, and friend requests. And I understood that Catfish was a film that featured
Facebook; but it was not a film about Facebook.
In many ways, this film roots its story in the now but manages to transcend age
and date in its depiction of romance and friendship. It's a tale of foolish love for a new generation and growing pains for the current. It's a portrait of the things we loved
about relationships from yesteryear and a warning about the perils of friendships
for the modern times.
