Inventing Anna
Year: 2022
Created by: Shonda Rheims
Starring: Anna Chlumsky, Alexis Floyd, Julia Garner, Katie Lowes, Adrian Moayed
Episodes: 9
BBFC: 15
Published: 18/03/22
Created by: Shonda Rheims
Starring: Anna Chlumsky, Alexis Floyd, Julia Garner, Katie Lowes, Adrian Moayed
Episodes: 9
BBFC: 15
Published: 18/03/22
When I watched the 2019 documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, I have to say I felt little to no remorse for the majority of people who were conned out of thousands of dollars, all because people weren’t asking the right questions and taking everything at face value. It’s incredible then to think that around the same time as Fyre Festival, there was another great scam happening in New York City where the con-artist involved was able to get her way and ‘trick’ every single person she came into contact with simply because they didn’t ask the right questions, or took everything she said at face value. It’s simply dumbfounding to me that in Trump’s America a poor immigrant woman was able to con New York’s social elite, and nobody batted an eyelid until it was far too late. Now with a dramatization making the rounds on Netflix, it’s time to peel back the layers of Anna Delvey and understand how she did it.
Disgraced journalist Vivian Kent (Anna Chlumsky) is looking for her next story in the hopes that it may restore some of her credibility. She stumbles across the recently arrested Anna Sorokin (Julia Garner) who it is claimed defrauded numerous banks and credit card companies, as well as stole hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of services from numerous hotels and restaurants in New York. Intrigued as to how Miss Sorokin achieved this, Vivian meets with her in prison to get her story. Who she meets is Anna Delvey, a wealthy German heiress who believes she has been falsely imprisoned because her trust fund hasn’t cleared.
As Vivian makes contact with the people Anna was close with throughout this time, the gets a whole lot more complicated as no two accounts of who Anna was add up to the person Vivian has met. Who is Anna Delvey, and how did she manage to fool every single person she met?
Disgraced journalist Vivian Kent (Anna Chlumsky) is looking for her next story in the hopes that it may restore some of her credibility. She stumbles across the recently arrested Anna Sorokin (Julia Garner) who it is claimed defrauded numerous banks and credit card companies, as well as stole hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of services from numerous hotels and restaurants in New York. Intrigued as to how Miss Sorokin achieved this, Vivian meets with her in prison to get her story. Who she meets is Anna Delvey, a wealthy German heiress who believes she has been falsely imprisoned because her trust fund hasn’t cleared.
As Vivian makes contact with the people Anna was close with throughout this time, the gets a whole lot more complicated as no two accounts of who Anna was add up to the person Vivian has met. Who is Anna Delvey, and how did she manage to fool every single person she met?
Whilst the premise of Inventing Anna sounds interesting, I can assure you that for the most part the series is not. The majority of the cast deliver fantastic performances, but the pacing is all over the place and you ultimately don’t really get all the answers you’re after. It’s key to remember that this is a dramatization of real events, but if real events have that unsatisfying an ending then is the story worth telling?
Despite the cast delivering great performances, I also struggled to connect with any of them because they’re all snooty rich people who are upset that they got conned out of a few thousand dollars. Why am I supposed to care? They play the pity me card so much because they’ve been ‘solen’ from, but ultimately all of them allowed themselves to be conned because they just did anything she asked. All of the businesses she conned were just giving her money, free services, or special treatment because they thought she was good for the money without doing any actual checks. The number of hotels she was able to live in for weeks or months at a time without having a credit card on file with them is astounding. Banks and credit companies were practically throwing money at her without doing any background checks…and she didn’t manage to do it to just one or two, it was dozens of them!
Now whilst the series may have taken some creative liberties with the story, I somehow don’t struggle to believe that this was an accurate portrayal of what happened. She acted like she had money, and so they just gave her more money, despite all the money she did have was just seemingly freely given to her by banks because she kicked up a fuss.
Julia Garner is the standout performer here as Anna. She does make the character truly interesting and slowly reveals new layers to her all of the time. It’s small details in the way she carries herself or delivers lines that make this woman the enigma that she is. However, her accent is horrendously annoying. I believe that it is an accurate portrayal of the way the real Anna Sorokin spoke, but it often sounds like Garner can’t maintain an accent so just goes for some kind of broken Slavic.
Alexis Floyd was also a great performer as one of Anna’s acquaintances and the only person who seems to continue believing that she is who she says she is, Neff Davis. Despite the fact that Davis is clearly blind to the fact that Anna was stealing money and services from every single person she met, Floyd brings such energy into the role and she’s got some fantastic comedic timing to make other people sound like they’re the idiots (rather than her for believing a con artist, even after they’ve been proven guilty).
I also loved Ardian Moayed as Todd Spodek, Anna’s lawyer. He has a few moments to shine throughout the series but it really is the final episode where he gets to come into his element with the character and delivers one of the most powerful performances of the whole show.
Despite the cast delivering great performances, I also struggled to connect with any of them because they’re all snooty rich people who are upset that they got conned out of a few thousand dollars. Why am I supposed to care? They play the pity me card so much because they’ve been ‘solen’ from, but ultimately all of them allowed themselves to be conned because they just did anything she asked. All of the businesses she conned were just giving her money, free services, or special treatment because they thought she was good for the money without doing any actual checks. The number of hotels she was able to live in for weeks or months at a time without having a credit card on file with them is astounding. Banks and credit companies were practically throwing money at her without doing any background checks…and she didn’t manage to do it to just one or two, it was dozens of them!
Now whilst the series may have taken some creative liberties with the story, I somehow don’t struggle to believe that this was an accurate portrayal of what happened. She acted like she had money, and so they just gave her more money, despite all the money she did have was just seemingly freely given to her by banks because she kicked up a fuss.
Julia Garner is the standout performer here as Anna. She does make the character truly interesting and slowly reveals new layers to her all of the time. It’s small details in the way she carries herself or delivers lines that make this woman the enigma that she is. However, her accent is horrendously annoying. I believe that it is an accurate portrayal of the way the real Anna Sorokin spoke, but it often sounds like Garner can’t maintain an accent so just goes for some kind of broken Slavic.
Alexis Floyd was also a great performer as one of Anna’s acquaintances and the only person who seems to continue believing that she is who she says she is, Neff Davis. Despite the fact that Davis is clearly blind to the fact that Anna was stealing money and services from every single person she met, Floyd brings such energy into the role and she’s got some fantastic comedic timing to make other people sound like they’re the idiots (rather than her for believing a con artist, even after they’ve been proven guilty).
I also loved Ardian Moayed as Todd Spodek, Anna’s lawyer. He has a few moments to shine throughout the series but it really is the final episode where he gets to come into his element with the character and delivers one of the most powerful performances of the whole show.
The biggest problem with Inventing Anna is by far how slow it moves. The series consists of nine bloated and awkwardly paced episodes. Honestly, I think the story could have been done in half the time and arguably have been more compelling. There’s no need for the story to be as long as it is, as I find it baffling that this managed to get through to broadcast without someone putting their foot down and saying that it needs to be shortened. Episodes range in length from sixty minutes to ninety, that’s just way too long! Despite wanting to find out how Anna managed to pull all this off, I found the series such a slog to get through and come the end I can’t say it was worth it.
I don’t feel like we know an awful lot more about Anna Delvey/Sorokin come the end of the show than we did at the start of it. There are some interesting revelations made about her family life in the final episodes of the show, but arguably all the juicy information about who Anna really is inside is left unanswered because the character of Vivian decides that she doesn’t want to investigate that (whether her real life counterpart Jessica Pressler made that same decision I’m not sure). It’s like it dangles a carrot in front of you for eight episodes only to just throw the carrot away during the ninth and wonder why you wanted the carrot in the first place.
Whilst the story of Anna Sorokin is undoubtedly interesting, it can be boiled down to stupid rich people didn’t do their jobs properly. I can’t say that justifies needing to invest so much of your time into watching Inventing Anna. Sure, the performances are great…but you’ll be left feeling unfulfilled and most likely bored come the ending. I’d give it a miss and hope that a documentary with greater depth and a more concise runtime tackles the issue in the future.
I don’t feel like we know an awful lot more about Anna Delvey/Sorokin come the end of the show than we did at the start of it. There are some interesting revelations made about her family life in the final episodes of the show, but arguably all the juicy information about who Anna really is inside is left unanswered because the character of Vivian decides that she doesn’t want to investigate that (whether her real life counterpart Jessica Pressler made that same decision I’m not sure). It’s like it dangles a carrot in front of you for eight episodes only to just throw the carrot away during the ninth and wonder why you wanted the carrot in the first place.
Whilst the story of Anna Sorokin is undoubtedly interesting, it can be boiled down to stupid rich people didn’t do their jobs properly. I can’t say that justifies needing to invest so much of your time into watching Inventing Anna. Sure, the performances are great…but you’ll be left feeling unfulfilled and most likely bored come the ending. I’d give it a miss and hope that a documentary with greater depth and a more concise runtime tackles the issue in the future.