Film Review: Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010)

Considering the meteoric rise of street artist Banksy, going from just one of many similar artists to someone whose work routinely sells for thousands of pounds and who can be called upon to design a typically bleak and hilarious opening sequence for The Simpsons, his first foray into film seems both inevitable yet unexpected. There is a limit to what his satirical pieces can do, so a move into a more populist medium makes sense, but that just raises the question of whether or not his impish satire would work on film. Exit Through The Gift Shop, whilst not as dark as Banksy's other work, definitely maintains the healthy irreverence which has gained him such notoriety.

Catfish

Yaniv "Nev" Schulman is a professional photographer who lives and works in New York. After a picture he took of two people dancing on top of a roof is featured in a magazine, he receives an e-mail from an 8-year old girl named Abby. Abby lives in rural Michigan, but was so taken with Nev's photo that she paints her own version, which she then sends to Nev. This initiates a correspondence which gradually leads Nev to come to know the members of Abby's family, specifically her 19-year old sister Megan.