Inventing Anna

Netflix paid Anna Sorokin, the German scammer at the heart of this series, $320,000 for the rights to her story. Sorokin used the money to pay back some of the funds she had stolen from banks, and some of the fines she owed the State of New York. Then she got on every talk show and new excerpt she could to keep building her fame.

As of this writing, she is awaiting deportation back to Germany, but is currently sick with COVID. ICE believes she contracted COVID so that she could stay in the US longer, because, after all, Anna is a con artist.

And, just so that we all understand how sociopathy and Hollywood works, the banks were repaid with Anna's story rights. The ordinary human beings whose credit cards and bank accounts she use are still out of money. Despite NY's Son of Sam law, Anna is profiting from her crimes by becoming an antihero through this story written by Shonda Rimes. When we watch this film, we are helping a sociopath profit.

Grifters grift.

Julia Garner does a great job as Anna, although her voice made me want to shoot the TV. Shonda gives us an engaging script. But what's the difference in this an making a movie of OJ's "If I DID IT?" The degree of crime?

I didn't like the idea of elevating a grifter, and I especially didn't like the built in idea that her thefts were okay because she only stole from rich people. She didn't.

She wasn't Robin Hood. She was just a thief.

The story of Anna Delvey/Sorokin is an interesting one that I've been aware of since years before this series came out. Julia Garner does a great performance as Anna both showing her as an entitled wanna-be and a vulnerable girl in over her head. The problem is, for some reason the show decided to frame the narrative around some journalist slowly uncovering the story. It's like they didn't think the story of Anna had enough to work on its own (which it certainly does). It wouldn't be so bad if the premise wasn't so ridiculously tropey and over the top. Disgraced female journalist dealing with her misogynistic bosses while the ticking clock element is the fact she is literal weeks from giving birth. It's all just so unnecessary and distracting from the story of Anna. Netflix is not network television, there is no incentive to make a series longer, this could have all been told in a concise 5-6 episodes without the journalist narrative.

Vivian character was a complete bore. Anna Chumsky mugged and overacted. The story is too dragged out. Material for 3 episodes tops! Julia Garner, as usual, is fantastic, but the character she created is off putting. Typical Netflix_take a good story for a movie and make an 8 part series out of it.

Not so bad in general, but too long... Julia Garner is always good, but Anna Chlumsky, gosh, so bad acting. Her facial expression is so exaggerated, faces and faces and faces. Watching her scrunch her face up was really annoying.

Oh dear. This show focuses on an annoying, self-absorbed journalist who is trying to discover the truth but what is interesting is Julia Garner's performance. It would be much better if they had ditched the boring 'finding out' bits and just let Anna's story tell itself.