When Kirat Assi obtained a Fb good friend request from a person named Bobby Jandu, in 2009, she had no motive to view it suspiciously. It was 2009 – everybody was increasing their Fb networks. Bobby’s household was well-known within the Kenyan Punjabi Sikh neighborhood and the 2 shared many mutual associates on-line. Bobby’s youthful brother, JJ, was relationship Kirat’s youthful cousin Simran. They have been each in long-term relationships, and each posted incessantly about their lives. Although the 2 had by no means met in particular person – Bobby, a cardiology assistant, bounced between the UK and Kenya, and Kirat, a advertising and marketing skilled, lived in London – they struck up a friendship on-line.
Over practically a decade, that friendship deepened right into a digital romance, an engagement and finally an all-consuming net of unfulfilled guarantees that ate up the majority of Kirat’s 30s – all a part of an elaborate catfishing scheme relived and re-enacted within the Netflix documentary Candy Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare. The movie, co-produced with Tortoise Media and based mostly on its hit podcast of the identical identify, is a largely chronological, first-person account by Kirat of her expertise. She’s a cogent and remarkably grounded narrator of her story, detailing in current tense how she grew nearer and nearer to “Bobby”, in addition to to his family and friends, by way of Fb Messenger, WhatsApp, cellphone calls and Skype, as Bobby “recovered” from a capturing and stroke in New York.
The story is, frankly, so loopy, the scheme so intricate and sophisticated – I don’t wish to spoil it for individuals who, like me, hadn’t heard the hit podcast it was based mostly on, however suffice to say I stay astounded – that listening to Kirat inform it plain can be riveting sufficient. The shock withstands the requisite too-bright Netflix lighting and tacky re-enactments. In higher moments, director Lyttanya Shannon (Subnormal: A British Scandal) accentuates Kirat’s narration with what basically quantities to repetitive screengrabs of their respective Fb profiles and messages, or recreations of Skype calls and digital interfaces. (A disclaimer notes that some on-line identities have been changed with actors to guard the privateness of individuals concerned.) Interviews with a handful of Kirat’s kin and associates additionally present helpful context, each on the familial pressures Kirat confronted – single in her mid-30s and determined to begin a household, beginning over with out Bobby appeared like a shameful possibility – and the way crimson flags, akin to Bobby’s declare that he was in witness safety, have been ignored.
Within the curiosity of suspense, concision and/or privateness, some essential context appears passed over – the dynamics of the UK/Kenyan Punjabi Sikh neighborhood, for one, or how nicely Kirat knew the individuals who knew Bobby’s household (the phrase “knew” is used loosely – it’s typically not clear whether or not an interplay or relationship is IRL, digital or each). Shannon, with the assistance of reams of knowledge, conversations and images saved by Kirat as proof, successfully evokes the truth distortion discipline Kirat discovered herself in after years of intimately chatting with Bobby, who finally insisted she maintain the Skype name open whereas they slept however refused to see her. Nonetheless, the sensation of lacking data – whether or not from the pure skepticism of listening to a scammer story or the results of lacking context – nags because the plot thickens.
Although fortunately not stretched into a number of episodes, Candy Bobby, at 82 minutes, is the uncommon case of a true-crime documentary that could possibly be longer. The large reveal (no spoiler on the perpetrator) is swift, and the decision barely teased out. (The movie ends with a notice {that a} civil case Kirat introduced towards the catfisher was settled out of court docket in 2022.) Candy Bobby simply accomplishes shock – I screamed at my laptop computer – although that largely owes to the really unhinged uncooked materials. Shannon’s real-time strategy to telling it augments greater than it detracts – till the scammer’s quantity is inevitably up. Whether or not for authorized causes, a want to maintain some issues non-public or a real lack of solutions, the absence of any conjecture on why this rip-off, why this sufferer, and the way this scheme saved going is evident.
As an alternative, the movie concludes with what seems like a half-hearted name for authorized reform to account for catfishing and digital deception, together with the same old platitudes about rebuilding one’s life after really unfathomable psychological manipulation and devastation. Finally, Candy Bobby leaves extra questions than solutions, although as is the unlucky case with many catfishing scams, typically there are none.