With most documentaries, technique frequently trumps content. An audacious documentary about a non-story is still regarded as a triumph of technique overcoming the limitations of content. This is not the case with Talhotblond, a documentary with a most galling story told in the most inept way possible. And, fellow movie watchers, you simply must watch this movie if only to fully grasp how important technique is to telling a story.

Back in 2007, an in depth Wired article about online obsession and identity fraud made its way around certain circles on the internet. The story was as cruel as it was fascinating. A married middle aged man posing as a young hot soldier develops an unhealthy infatuation with a teenage girl in the Yahoo! gaming rooms. The girl also becomes involved, online, with one of his co-workers…and, it’s an old clickbait cliche, but you absolutely won’t believe what happens next. Let’s just say that any semblance of sanity goes straight out the window.

With such a fascinating topic forming the base of a movie, it is hard to imagine how a documentary could go wrong. 20/20 and Dateline NBC churn out rote versions of the story 2-4 times a week, using a narrator to pull the audience along the sketchier aspects of “Investigative” journalism. Unfortunately, there’s little investigative about Talhotblond. It seems like director Barbara Schroeder read the article, and decided to make it into a movie. She interviews the subjects in a failed attempt to plumb some depth from the characters, and even scores compelling footage of the subjects who would rather not be involved. And, that’s where her investigation stopped. Talhotblond is a retelling of the Wired article seemingly verbatim. While not a problem in and of itself, Schroeder is absolutely lost with how to transform lengthy IM chats into compelling cinema, opting for a sub-Dateline format of putting the text on the screen as a voice tells you what you’re reading.

The technical ineptitude of Talhotblond is fascinating in its own right. How can a story with so much right in it go so wrong? Why is the movie narrated by a dead character? Why are we getting critical analysis from “experts” who never met the actual people? There’s a hardline dichotomy between story and storytelling that creates a tension that must be seen to be believed.

Talhotblond streams on Netflix