What’s clear is that filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman — as well as Ariel’s brother Nev, a professional photographer who’s the film’s de facto star — are in way over their heads. “Catfish’’ documents Nev’s growing online friendship over the course of several months with a Midwestern family, the Pierces, whose 8-year-old daughter, Abby, sends him a painting based on one of his photographs. She’s clearly a prodigy, and as the photos and artwork flow back and forth, Nev becomes close with Abby’s mom, Angela, her dad, Vince — the whole extended clan. When he gets to know Abby’s grown half-sister, an amateur singer and model named Megan, the movie becomes a long-distance romance charged with delight and young lust.
Of course, Nev and Megan don’t really know each other. All of the Schulman/Pierce communication takes place in pixel-space against a whirring digital scrim of Facebook/texting/IM. Live phone calls are the only proof of actual existence. Because of that, the courtship is both virginal and hot: The two can’t keep their virtual hands off each other. Nev, a toothy young charmer, is so smitten with Megan that he Photoshops their images together — the 21st-century version of carving initials in a tree.
And then — but I can say no more, other than to note that what may come as a jaw-dropping shock to some viewers will be no surprise to others. After a certain point, “Catfish’’ is structured as a suspense thriller, and its sense of unease is punctuated by eerie moments of revelation but also some of the goggle-eyed fear of rural America that made “The Blair Witch Project’’ unintentionally comic.
