It is inevitable that, somewhere along the line, those filming a documentary will become a part of the action, voluntarily or not. So gripe all you want about the undeniable fact that the majority the action of Catfish is steered by the folks behind the camera, but you can't deny the overwhelming power of where it ends up, at an alarming crossroads of brutal, brilliant revelation that gets at some of the central tragedies of our time. Here is this year's Academy Award winner for Best Documentary. 
We follow Yaniv "Nev" Schulman, an unshaven schlub of a New York photographer, daft and a tad horny but somehow more than a little lovable. When Nev receives a painting of one of his photos from 8-year-old artistic prodig Abby Martin he friends her on Facebook, ultimately becoming involved with her family and striking up a long-distance relationship with her half-sister Megan. Only when Yaniv sets out with camera-toting brother Ariel and his good friend Henry to pay a surprise visit to his beloved do the cracks in the tapestry begin to show....but enough. The less said about Catfish in all respects, the better your viewing experience will be. I'm sure you've heard about the whopper of a twist, which actually occurs about midway through the picture. I won't spoil it, but I will say that if you've happened upon its specifics and responded with rolled eyes, you oughtn't judge a book by its cover. The plot point, shocking as it is, doesn't define this film. Ariel and Henry have corralled mountains of pixelated video and grainy soundbites into a lean, steadily engrossing character study, not of a few people but of an entire generation whose ability to connect has slowly, dangerously metastasized into an excuse to escape. As Nev learns the truth about Megan, we learn the truth about ourselves. So skip out on Life As We Know It. Across the hall in the little theater with the faulty air conditioning where indies go to die, this smartly assembled, indescribably disturbing, entirely necessary picture presents a hellish but not entirely hopeless picture of life as we know it.
Or, you could plunk down a totally worth-it ten bucks and see what's basically an anomaly in these days of Heigl-happy hellfire; a great mainstream movie, one that just so happens to cover much of the same ground as Catfish, albeit from the other side of the laptop screen. You've seen the ads. You've read the articles. And, chances are, a chosen few of you have understandably dismissed it as "the Facebook movie". The Social Network is indeed just that, but I don't see the label as an insult. After all, aren't we the Facebook nation? Has any other single website caused such a paradigm shift in how we interact with friends? With enemies? With ourselves? Here is a devilishly entertaining true-life legal drama that doubles as a first-class tragedy given to unshakable moments of almost Shakesperean sublimity. It's a tad earlier to be prepping best lists, but I will say this; if a better film comes along this year, we'll be the luckiest audience in the world.
At heart, this one's all about betrayal. There's Harvard whiz-kid Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), hired by his classmates the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer plays both thanks to the galvanizing magic of CGI) to create a college social networking site. There's Eduardo Savarin (Andrew Garfield), the twiggish softie who helps Mark form a website suspiciously similar to the one he promised to design for the Winklevosses, then unknowingly deprives them of credit. And there's Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), former Napster CEO, ladies men, Iago in designer duds, who sends Mark skyrocketing in the upper stratospheres of financial fruition while slowly snaking his way into Eduardo's position. That's when the lawsuits come in. The ones that involve sex, drugs, and a larger sum of money than it'd take to send a thousand kids to Mark's beloved Harvard.
This sordid saga proof is that truth outpaces fiction, and it has a one-thing-after-another quality that could come off as bad John Grisham in the hands of a weaker writer than Aaron Sorkin, who structures the picture as a series of measured, savvy conversations interrupted by startling cannonades of blistering verbal dynamite. This screenplay is so good I caught audience members ducking and sweating at certain lines as if they were thousand-dollar explosions. But a screenplay's only so much without a cast that can meet its demands, and here we have a series of rising stars who shine so bright they incinerate even our highest expectations. Eisenberg won't win the Oscar for this performances. It's too subtle, too controlled, too unshowy. But it's a performance that will be lauded for years to come as a shining portrayal of an anti-hero, a shrewd, sharp dissection of a man blessed with such superior intellect that he can outthink even himself. More likely to have a shot at an acceptance speech is Garfield, as he gets the kind of Major Meltdown scene that makes older voters cream themselves. But let's hope they also notice the uncanny skill with which he builds to this searing eruption. And then there's Timberlake, who outdoes any artistic output in his career thus far. He slyly plays on our image of him as a performer, shows how Sean's skill with seduction in both bedroom and boardroom blinds Mark to his corroded conscience and coked-out paranoia. He spins like a top, and our jaws plummet in astonishment. All this near idol-worship and I haven't even gotten to Jeff Croneweth's cinematography, subdued yet stunning, or Trent Reznor's score, which runs rings around the meandering, spaced-out crap that tends to pass as movie music these days. And the best for last, director David Fincher, who cements himself as a boundlessly imaginative filmmaker and an astute social commentary. He's here to stay. So is the picture.
And now, kiddies, for my recommendation. See these two films in the same day. I'd suggest Catfish first, followed by a nice long lunch break, and then a viewing of The Social Network to cap off the experience. We make fun of the FB phenom, but we do it at our own peril-after all, how many Facebook posts have you seen about the stupidity of Facebook movies? Catfish tells of a virus rapidly infecting our country, a desire to maximize at-a-distance contact so as to perfect our words, our looks, our actions. The Social Network shows us how the strain was planted, by people twice as smart as most of us but also twice as insecure. They started it to encourage exclusivity. Then they stumbled upon an entire nation of people like Yaniv Schulman-a United States united by a need to belong. Both films: A
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