Unknown Number: The High School Catfish

Every so often, Netflix releases a true crime documentary so algorithmically rigorous, so obnoxiously constructed, and so casually exploitative that its success is almost a foregone conclusion. It would, in fact, be a miracle if the film didn’t break through the clutter. Unknown Number: The High School Catfish follows in the undignified tradition of films such as The Tinder Swindler and The Social Dilemma, narrating a story so bizarre that they could’ve made 15 different versions of it and still had material left over. The version presented to us, although undeniably engaging, is perhaps the least responsible way that the filmmakers could’ve approached this scandalous tale. The crime that it revisits wasn’t entirely victimless. And while Unknown Number understands the tragedy at its core — the final 15 minutes contain enough evidence to support this theory — the way it chooses to present its findings is rather odd. The film revolves around… nobody. While it could’ve chosen to approach it from the perspective of at least three different people, it decides to make the story itself the protagonist. Actively ignoring all the different human interest angles on the table is unusual for any documentarian — one could argue that it is their job to uncover human arcs by sifting through hours and hours of raw footage — but that is what director Skye Borgman does here.