I am no exception to the majority of teenagers and twenty-somethings who are bored of being belittled by the media as the “Facebook generation”, so I can empathise with a reluctance to sit through another representation of our supposedly one-dimensional cyber existence. However, Catfish belongs to a far superior category of cinema.

Unfortunately, I am forced to patronise those who haven’t seen the film with the notion that the less you know about the plot in advance, the better. As frustrating as that always is to hear, I feel that it would be a crime against film to give away the twists and turns in the plot which render Catfish a multi-layered insight into modern society.

Nonetheless, I can reveal that Catfish is not a fictional story – it is a genuine documentary, filmed on camcorders, born from the creative talents of three young New Yorkers. Through this medium, the audience follows photographer Nev as he builds and contemplates a Facebook friendship with an eight year-old fan and, subsequently, other members of her family.

The intimacy of the camerawork creates a powerful bond between the ‘actors’ and the audience, so each cringe, cry and crack-up is genuine, creating an empathy which is rarely found in our overexposed era.

Catfish is more than just a film about Facebook: it reflects on timeless themes such as misplaced trust, the fickleness of love, and the need for personal fulfilment. The social networking premise merely places these issues in the context of modern society, and more importantly, in the context of the unspectacular lives of ordinary people.

So, gladly, we can welcome a film about the Internet which doesn’t try to act as a moral medicine curing our ‘diseased’ society of its addiction to technology. Warning: side effects may include a light friend-deleting session.