You might have heard the story, but even so, this film is designed to lead us through the story as it unfolded by the victim: A teenage girl in her first sweet romance. This documentary thankfully doesn’t attempt to stretch out material into episodes, making this 1-hour and 34-minute documentary easy to digest.

Director Skye Borgman has somehow put her subjects–the parents, the kids, the school administrators, the police and even the FBI,  at ease. Borgman slowly unspools the story  of Lauryn Licari like a mystery. Lauryn’s romance with Owen McKenny began normally enough in 2020, but within a few months was marred by ugly test messages. “Hi Lauryn, Owen is breaking up with you. He no longer lives you and hasn’t liked you for a while. It’s obvious he wants me.”

I love  mystery movies and while there are no bodies at the end of this documentary, there are plenty of casualties, including youthful innocence, here. The teen couple lived in Beal City, Michigan. Beal City is an unincorporated community that only covers 4.01 square miles. According to the 2000 census, there are only 345 people there, making up 124 households and 91 families. My high school had over 600 students when it first opened in 1947. By the 2023-2024 year, it had nearly two thousand students.

It’s a small town and Borgman’s scripting gives you an idea of this talking about the student body. While that might seem cozy at first with such wholesome families involved, it becomes a nightmarish enclosure when the messages get uglier, ruder and then cruder–sexually explicit in a way that might make you squirm in some company. This isn’t a movie to watch on a first date or with strangers.

Yet this might make you examine the nature of social media and families. They can make cozy comfortable confines or become horrifically constraining. Lauryn knows that the unknown number must be someone she knows. What was once cozy becomes an uncomfortable fishbowl where everyone is watching.

“Unknown Number: The High School Catfish” gives us both the ups and downs of small town life and something to reflect upon when thinking about the relationship between mothers and daughters. The film was released on Netflix on 29 August 2025.