Unknown Number: The High School Catfish has taken Netflix by storm, surging to the top of the streaming service’s Top 10 most-watched movies charts. Photo: Netflix.
‘Catfishing’ is a term used to describe someone who uses a fake or misleading profile to deceive a person.
It’s often referred to in the dating app space when someone uses a picture that isn’t them to attract or lure in another person.
In the case of Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, it is used to describe a person who used an untraceable and anonymous phone number to harass a young couple for over a year and a half.
Set in the US state of Michigan, the documentary follows the story of teenager Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend Owen McKenny. The young high school sweethearts were often touted as the “IT” couple of their school, with many of their peers jealous of their status.
Out of the blue, the pair started receiving abusive texts from an unknown number.
Messages telling the pair to break up, calling Lauryn ugly and a bunch of expletives, as well as threatening and stalking messages of Owen, would continue for 18 months, resulting in their parents, the school, local police and at one point the FBI being called in to find the culprit behind the messages.
Don’t let the almost high school drama of the plot fool you; this story is bonkers. There’s no two ways around it.
The brief synopsis I gave doesn’t do the twists and turns of this true story justice, and that’s why, above all, I believe you should check it out if you haven’t already.
Documentaries aren’t often a feature of these reviews, but in this instance, I believe it’s well worth the discussion.
The first hour of the 90-minute run time is almost perfect.
It lets you in gently, laying out the relationship between all the major players in the story: the kids involved, their parents, the school principal, and the eventual investigator of the case.
While the initial messages sent to the couple are horrific, it feels as if they will become a commentary on the use of phones and social media within high schools, and for a brief period, they do.
But as information becomes apparent, the scope of the narrative grows, and a picture of who is responsible becomes apparent; it becomes less of a documentary and more of a horror film.
Now that may be hyperbolic, but the issue is, the eventual culprit is far scarier than what the early culprits the documentary may suggest. In this instance, the documentary is genius.
It’s by no means a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation, but the subject matter and the real-life story complement each other really well, where, despite the he-said, she-said nature of it all, you can’t look away.
It all culminates with real police footage of the final arrest being made, which left me angrier than anything else I’ve seen this year.
The issues with the documentary come in the final third.
With the tale now told, the documentary attempts to wrap up the motives of the person behind it all and the now broken relationships between Lauryn, Owen and some of the other major players.
In many ways, it feels a tad abusive towards the teenagers it’s filming. It begs them to answer difficult questions that no reasonable adult would have answers to, making them appear silly or insane for the choices they make.
It also bends an already defeated family by putting them in an impossible situation with no clear correct answer. My description is vague, yes, but it’s required to keep the mystery intact.
For the most part, the documentary is really great popcorn material, while also providing a bleak overview of the harms of kids being online. In some ways, this makes it essential viewing.
Unfortunately, the final 20-25 minutes miss the mark.
All the secrets are out, and instead of resonating with the victims and their choices, it chooses to focus on how awful the situation really is. Commentary on how unprecedented the situation is, while also wrapping up other loose ends, would have sufficed more so than trying to create a couple of watercooler conversation moments for a story that was already bonkers.
Ultimately, Unknown Number is worth the watch, and the story justified its position in Netflix’s Top 10 most-watched films this month.
Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is now streaming on Netflix.
