Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare Review: The catfish scam that involved Kirat Assi for nine years is not told with the right attention but gives in to sensationalism
It is the early 2000s, the period in which Facebook is the most used social network and awareness of the dangers that can be encountered on the internet is at an all-time low. But even if she had been warned, Kirat, the protagonist and narrator of Sweet Bobby: My Nightmare, the new true crime documentary by Netflix available from October 17, 2025, does not believe she has anything to fear.
Taken from the famous podcast of the same name, Sweet Bobby tells the absurd story that involves Kirat Assi in an intricate and disturbing catfish case.
The story of Sweet Bobby
When in 2009 she received a friend request from Bobby Jandu on Facebook, Kirat had no suspicions. After all, Bobby's family has a great reputation in the Kenyan community where they both come from and the two families know each other because of the relationship between Kirat's cousin, Simran, and Bobby's younger brother. Furthermore, Kirat resides in the UK as does Bobby who, being a cardiologist, lives between London and Kenya.
The two start talking sporadically at first and become more and more close over time until their relationship becomes romantic. Even though the two have never met, Bobby and Kirat intend to get married and start a family together. After nine years of lies and a crazy plan, Kirat discovers the truth behind Bobby's profile.
When the serial format would have really made the difference
Unlike many other documentaries on Netflix that are in serial format, Sweet Bobby is a film lasting an hour and twenty minutes during which all the dynamics of the complex story are told, the people involved are introduced and the important, albeit brief, context is set up.
Kirat's story is told in the first person through a long interview that recounts the events in chronological order, occasionally interrupted by recited reconstructions and brief appearances by her family and other victims.
Sweet Bobby: My Nightmare's intentions are to focus on the unfolding of the story and, above all, on the final twist that allows all the pieces to fit together. Unlike the nature of many true crime documentaries, little attention is paid to the context that led Kirat to open up and trust an acquaintance. The documentary does not provide the tools necessary to understand the woman's point of view and how the person pretending to be Bobby might have been able to influence Kirat for so long.
There are few moments in which the feature film lingers to explain what marriage means to Kirat or how she feels about being a 32-year-old single woman with no children. As she herself admits, Kirat has the desire to become a wife and start a family of her own, but the narration and interviews with the relatives involved also reveal that for women in their culture, marriage, and motherhood are fundamental to defining themselves as fulfilled.
This fundamental aspect and the anxiety that the woman feels, however, are only hinted at several times, but it never becomes a theme of the documentary nor a topic explored in depth by any of the parties involved. Just as the dynamics of the catfish and the power dynamics that it creates are not explored in depth either.
Sweet Bobby: evaluation and conclusion
For a documentary, Sweet Bobby is quite superficial and sensationalistic. It tells the story in an almost sensationalistic way, albeit minimal, rather than focusing on giving the viewer the right tools to understand all the dynamics. Both those of power exercised by the executioner were triggered to isolate Kirat and to instill a sense of blind trust in a person she has never seen, nor how Kirat could find herself in that situation. The woman's background, her culture, and the subtle power exercised by the person behind Bobby, although they are fundamental aspects that would have deserved more space, are reduced to hints.
Sweet Bobby manages to capture attention thanks to the crazy story it tells, not for the way it does it.