Netflix’s recent release, Inventing Anna, is a miniseries prompted by the New York magazine article “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People,” written by Jessica Pressler. The series made its debut on the OTT platform on February 11, 2022, and is nine episodes long.
The story revolves around the historic scam by Anna Sorokin, a Russian-German fugitive known in the world of criminals as the woman camouflaged as Anna Delvey who impersonated to be a wealthy German heiress under the name Delvey to extort banks, hotels, and wealthy acquaintances.
Her story was fully disclosed in the viral New York Magazine segment that unearthed this prolific trickster. The writer of this article, Pressler, is a distinguished American journalist well known for her 2015’s writing, “The Hustlers at Scores,” which was in the nominations for a National Award.
Netflix announced the arrival of this series in June 2018 after Shonda Rhimes wrote and produced the show after procuring the New York article, “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People.” The starting two episodes of the series are directed under the supervision of David Frankel.
The series cast includes Julia Garner, Anna Chlumsky, Katie Lowes, Laverne Cox, Alexis Floyd, Arian Moayed, Anders Holm, Anna Deavere Smith, Jeff Perry, Terry Kinney, and Jennifer Esposito.
Garner looked terrific in the role of the fake German heiress. The show’s opening scene was capable enough to hook the audiences as we were introduced to our antiheroine in all her ice-cold, brutal, scornful, compelling glory. The show’s makers made her human enough to make us believe in her experiences and scandals, and as viewers, we never lose interest or emotional investment in her.
Along with the leading con-artist, the role of Vivian Kent, a character based on the writer Jessica Pressler, whose article about Delvey in New York magazine after her arrest brought Anna to the world’s attention, much to the mortification of the defrauded banks, art collectors, gallery owners, fashionistas and socialites who wanted their discomfiting credulousness skimmed under the rug. Chlumsky played this role with great conviction.
You will be moderately dissatisfied if you’re looking for a series that goes deep into the logical take on the criminal manifestation, pathology, and motivations. But if you are looking for a wild ride with a great screenplay, you should definitely binge-watch these nine episodes.
