FRAUD

On the surface, FRAUD seems like a rather straightforward film about how to commit the perfect crime. Faced with mounting debt, a well-adjusted couple with two bubbly young children decide to torch their house for the insurance money. After successfully collecting a substantial payout, the family evades detection and suspicion by embarking on an upbeat permanent vacation. However, FRAUD is actually a documentary based around DIY home movies uploaded to YouTube – clips that were then skillfully edited to fit an entirely fictional premise. In other words, the family members are real people who had their benign hotel stays, visits to New York, and trips to the mall twisted (with their knowledge and permission) into something nefarious. Yet knowing these facts doesn't make FRAUD any less powerful or absorbing. The documentary instead becomes a thought-provoking treatise on how easy it is for our online lives to be exploited and manipulated—and how even the most innocent everyday actions can be perceived as suspicious, given the perspective and narrative. -A.Z.