One of the more intriguing documentaries of this year, and a box office success in the US, it comes as little surprise to note this disturbing film was produced by Andrew Jarecki, director of the Oscar-nominated Capturing the Friedmans.
It follows New York photographer Nev and his increasingly strange relationship, via Facebook, with Abby, a talented 8-year-old painter, her 19-year-old sister and their mother.
As Nev becomes increasingly involved with a family he has only met online, bonding with Abby, full of admiration for her feisty mother, and developing a romantic relationship with the 19-year-old daughter, he becomes increasingly suspicious that everything isn’t quite adding up. Together with his filmmaker brother, he decides to meet this family in the flesh and sets off across America to do just that. And this is where things get weird. Very weird.
A thought-provoking, creepy and at the same time deeply humane documentary on the phenomenon of social networking, identity, and the capacity for self-delusion this new technology has enabled.