Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare’ on Netflix, A Disappointing Interpretation Of A Wildly Successful Podcast

Netflix’s Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare is based on a true podcast told from the perspective of a woman, Kirat Assi, who engaged in an online friendship and later became engaged to a man calling himself Bobby. How someone like Kirat could fall for someone she never met and let it go on as long as it does is all explained in the film, and, since it’s right there in the title, you know right away that this was no romance but an elaborate catfish that consumed a huge part of her life. If you’re familiar with the podcast already, you may have mixed feelings about this documentary as it restructures the story and omits key details. If this is your first introduction to Sweet Bobby , it’s a truly wild story, but beware of spoilers below if you don’t want to know who the catfish was until you’ve watched.

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Opening Shot: A woman operates the controls in a radio booth and starts to DJ a radio show.

The Gist: Kirat Assi, a successful London-based marketer and radio host, was born into a Sikh family with roots in Kenya. The Southeast Asian population in Kenya is a tight community, and because of that, she became Facebook friends with a man named Bobby Jandu whose brother JJ was dating Kirat’s cousin, Simran. For about three years, he and Kirat developed a friendship entirely over Facebook messenger where they would talk about their lives and confide in each other, and because Bobby was related to someone Kirat and her cousin knew, there was no doubt in her mind that he was a real person. In fact, very early in the movie, Kirat recalls meeting Bobby in a nightclub in Brighton at a time when they had been messaging each other for a couple months. She introduced herself, but Bobby seemed confused as to who she was, something she attributes to the loud music in the club. On the podcast, she refers to this fateful meeting as her Sliding Doors moment, if only she had spoken to this man she though was her Bobby and gotten to know the man in front of her, perhaps she could have spared herself nine years of what was to come. When they first met online, they were both seeing other people, eventually Kirat broke up with her boyfriend, while Bobby got divorced and remarried to another woman named Sanj.

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One day, three years into their friendship, Kirat received word that Bobby had been shot in Kenya, and shortly thereafter, he was put into the U.S witness protection program. Despite being in witness protection, Bobby was still allowed to message Kirat, and as he updates her on his rehabilitation, she learns he’s gotten a divorce from Sanj, so their relationship soon turns romantic. (Witness protection is one of many red flags that seem so implausible, and yet it seemed to makes sense to Kirat at the time.) Bobby proposes and creates a giant group chat with around 30 family members so Kirat can get to know his family online as they prepare for the wedding. Due to Bobby’s physical health, he’s unable to speak (catfish red flag #2!) and the fact that he’s in witness protection means he’s unable to do video calls, so though Kirat sends him voice messages and video chats all the time, she had still never spoken directly to the man calling himself Bobby.

Still, Kirat and Bobby maintain a relationship that becomes so co-dependent (they sleep with Skype or phone lines open so they can hear each other breathing all night) that when Kirat starts to pull away, Bobby becomes possessive and verbally abusive. But then Bobby has news: his ex-wife Sanj is pregnant with his child. When Bobby returns to the UK after years of witness protections, Kirat is ecstatic that she can finally meet Bobby face to face, but he refuses to see her. (The reddest of flags.) She gets rightfully upset and starts digging in to his life, trying to find the house she thought he owned, and tracking down his ex-wife Sanj to get answers from her. She hires a private investigator who gives her an address, and when she goes to the home, she comes face to face with Bobby, Sanj, and their baby.

Kirat is overwhelmed and furious that Bobby has been carrying on an affair with her while he’s been with Sanj this whole time, but the Bobby and Sanj who live at this house in Brighton, who are happily married, have no idea who she is and they’re just as overwhelmed and, frankly, terrified of this seemingly crazy woman accusing Bobby of an affair. And that’s when the true story of Sweet Bobby, the fictional man that tore Kirat’s life apart, comes out. [SPOILERS ABOUT BOBBY’S TRUE IDENTITY ALERT!] This is when Kirat, Bobby and Sanj find out that “Bobby” was a creation invented by Kirat’s cousin Simran, the one who once dated this real Bobby’s brother. (The Bobby who answered the door that day was the same man Kirat met in the club in Brighton nine years earlier, but it was Simran messaging Kirat while using real Bobby’s photo at that time, hence his confusion over who she was.) Over the course of nine years, Simran invented over 60 social media profiles, including fake versions of Bobby and Sanj, as well as dozens of family and friends who never existed but all communicated with Kirat over Facebook and led her to believe her Bobby was a real person. While at the end of the film it feels a bit like a PSA as to the dangers of a lack of regulation on the internet, when taken as a whole, it’s truly a tragic story of one woman who wasted nine years on something that never existed, and another woman, Simran, who is clearly troubled and unwell, but who may never be held accountable nor can even explain why she did what she did and does not appear in the film.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? While there are similar shows that are based on podcasts about real-life conslike Dirty John , Kirat’s story is incredibly similar to Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist , the true story of Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o, who earned national attention and sympathy when his girlfriend died. But what everyone – including Te’o – didn’t know, what that his girlfriend never existed and he had been catfished.

Our Take: Sweet Bobby is based on a six-part podcast that first debuted in 2021. There are two ways to review this documentary, the first is to simply judge it on the merits of a standalone piece of reporting, the second is to consider it a companion piece to the podcast. As a standalone movie, it creates a compelling and interesting story, though one that feels rushed at times. I imagine that it’s a brutal task to turn a nearly decade-long saga into a concise 85-minute film and make the hard decisions of what information is most necessary. However, I think it works best when viewed through this lens, because fans of the podcast may find that it falls short.

If you’ve already listened to the podcast and are familiar with the story as many of us are, it feels a little disappointing and perhaps even confusing, because there are many details that have been omitted from the film that felt pretty essential to the story. The film never fully explains certain details that ultimately make Kirat seem gullible and naive, while the podcast does a better job, in my opinion, of explaining how all of Bobby’s intricate lies seemed to make sense at the time. The one area where it feels somewhat rewarding is the reveal of the real Bobby and Sanj, although it’s also an area that I wish the film explored more, because they’re the ones whose identities were stolen and while we get to see them discuss their confusion surrounding the situation, they’re such an integral part to it all that I wouldn’t mind more of their interpretation of the whole situation. Likewise, the fact that there is no way to hold Simran accountable makes the story all the more infuriating, and only brings up more questions than answers.

Unfortunately, despite Kirat’s story being genuinely fascinating for many reasons, I feel like both the podcast and the documentary have failed her. While the pacing of the podcast is actually fairly slow, it never dug into certain aspects of Kirat’s family or culture that might have helped explain why she trusted Bobby so much. Likewise, the documentary rushes through many details that abbreviate the story even more. While the story is absolutely strange and upsetting, it’s unfortunate that the storytelling itself is lacking.

Sex and Skin: None – when Kirat is asked if she and Bobby ever had a sexual relationship she declines to answer.

Parting Shot: As an epilogue, a card on the screen explains that Simran was offered the opportunity to be interviewed and declined, but that she objects to the unfounded and damaging accusations lodged against her.

Memorable Dialogue: Sweet Bobby’s big climax when Kirat finally learns the truth behind Bobby leads up to one moment when she confronts her catfisher/cousin who admits, “It was all me. I’m Bobby.”

Our Call: SKIP IT! I think the podcast tells a better version of Kirat’s story, although overall, there are just so many nuances and details to the entire saga that feel like they were left unexplored by both media.

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