'Inventing Anna' raises compelling questions

The saga of fake German heiress Anna Delvey (Anna Sorokin), whose larcenous misdeeds were first made famous by articles in Vanity Fair and New York magazines in 2018, seems almost tailor-made for a TV miniseries adaptation, so I couldn't help but check out the nine-part "Inventing Anna" on Netflix.

With Shonda Rhimes at the helm as executive producer, it's no surprise that this adaptation of Jessica Pressler's "How Anna Delvey Tricked New York's Party People" for New York is well-cast and captures both the atmosphere and the immediacy of the social media on which the self-created character (and reputation) of Anna Delvey lived and died in the real world.

"Ozark" star Julia Garner somehow manages to recreate Sorokin's complicated mix of Russian and German accents, while Jeff Perry, Terry Kinney and especially Anna Deavere Smith provide a delightful Greek chorus of veteran journalists who aid Anna Chlumsky's "Vivian Kent" (a fictionalized version of Pressler, approved by the author herself, since Pressler serves as one of this miniseries' producers).

To its credit, in between affording viewers plenty of rubbernecking opportunities to look in on the lives of the fabulously wealthy and well-connected, "Inventing Anna" raises serious questions about the wisdom and security of a global financial network that proved so ill-prepared to ward off the all-too-obvious con-artistry of a woman in her 20s who was gifted at little more than picking out the trendiest fashions, parroting the most persuasive snippets of cocktail party conversations to the right people and spending obscene amounts of other people's money.

The story finds its firmest moral footing when arguing that Anna's would-be mentors (played by non-flashy but ever-dependable stalwarts like Kate Burton and Anthony Edwards) should be ashamed for allowing themselves to be misled by such red flag-flying hustlers, especially since Anna is shown keeping company with fraudsters ranging from the founder of 2017's notorious Fyre Festival to the inventor of an app that claimed to crowdsource data from people's dreams.

And Anna herself is at her most sympathetic when she's shown tossing off hundreds of dollars in tips to the hard-working hotel staffers whose behind-the-scenes labors facilitate the access of the rich and famous to all the hot spots and services they take for granted, by ensuring certain names appear on the VIP lists of otherwise exclusive restaurants, nightclubs and clothiers.

Actress Alexis Floyd's resume of named characters only dates to 2019, but she is so good as Neff, the hotel concierge who becomes Anna's loyal ride-or-die, that I anticipate much bigger roles for her in the future.

Regardless of the rest of our opinions about Anna, it's almost impossible not to be impressed by the scope of her ambitions, and by how she nearly defies gravity by coming tantalizingly close to pulling off her Ponzi schemes long enough to make her big-picture dreams happen.

The problem is "Inventing Anna" ultimately insists we should side with Anna Delvey for reaching far enough to exceed her grasp, even as the miniseries' own portrayal of Anna Sorokin depicts her as infuriatingly entitled, self-centered and downright sadistic when she needs to distract herself from the displeasure of not getting everything she wants.

Just because she managed to burn many institutions that not only can afford the losses, but also engage in far more predatory practices, it doesn't mean that Anna Delvey was Robin Hood in a succession of Instagrammed babydoll dresses.

Indeed, "Inventing Anna" arguably descends to character assassination in its portrayal of Rachel DeLoache Williams, who wrote "She Paid for Everything: How a Fake Heiress Made My $62,000 Disappear" for Vanity Fair, by attempting to shame her for seeking to recover what she'd lost to Anna Sorokin.

Finally, Anna Chlumsky is an actress whom I've long rooted for, since she's only a few years younger than me, but between "Inventing Anna" and HBO's "Veep," she seems to have fallen into a dramatic rut of playing women so obsessed with their jobs to the exclusion of all else that they come across like a male misogynist's idea of what a feminist career woman is like.

There's some decent stuff in here, but don't hesitate to tap out whenever it gets to be too much for you, especially since the ninth and final episode is a nearly 90-minute beast.

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
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