Catfish

Catfish is fascinating. At the same time, it emits a condescending, pitying odor. Yet any documentary able to provoke such mixed feelings on a single viewing is doing something right, even if you're not sure, in the end, what that thing is.

I say this with a heavy sigh: this is, by far, one of the most intriguing movies of the year.

There's more killer suspense and shocking intimacy in this one-of-a-kind documentary than you'll find in a dozen thrillers. You'll laugh hard and cry too.

Twisty tale of social-media intrigue makes for crowd-pleasing doc. Facebook opens new paths to heartbreak in "Catfish," a doc whose makers lucked into an intrigue far more twisted than anything they could have expected at the outset. Jaw-dropping and surprisingly kind-hearted considering the circumstances, it's easily engaging enough for a theatrical spin but will require clever marketing in order to preserve the surprises at its core.

What inspires a Michigan-based 8-year-old girl to paint a photograph from the New York Sun, why does she reach out online to the guy who took it, and where could that connection possibly lead? "Catfish" may seem a crazy thing to call a film intent on tackling these questions, but once the explanation comes, the title not only fits, but serves to christen an increasingly common 21st-century social phenom (move over, "cougars," there's a new predator in town!). Documenting in tantalizing detail the twist-filled true story of a young man fooled by Facebook, the pic should easily hook domestic crowds.