Origin and release year: USA (2022)
Starring: Julia Garner, Katie Lowes, Anna Chlumsky, Laverne Cox, Arian Moayed, Alexis Floyd, Anders Holm
Created by: Shonda Rhimes
Inventing Anna is the latest Netflix series on everyone’s lips. It’s based on the true story of Anna Delvey (aka Anna Sorkin) who was a fake Russian-German heiress.
The show was a Shondaland production and had all of the accompanying traits. It was riveting, interesting, and the characters were out of the ordinary.
They, of course, took creative liberties on the story to create dramatic and entertaining elements. However, the bulk of the storyline in terms of Anna defrauding New York bankers and millionaires, as well as her prison sentence are true.
For clarity’s sake, I will only be speaking about the characters in the series for this review.
Firstly, Anna’s character was a mix of things. She was a narcissist, disillusioned, self-important but at the same time seemed to be struggling with mental health issues.
She lashed out at the people who were trying to defend her and tell her story, calling them fat and ugly, dissing their fashion choices, etc. Which created the unlikable character.
However, I love that this perspective was flipped when her lawyer was interrogating Rachel. Rachel had always benefited from their friendship (much like many other people) and that was a stark reminder to the audience that we should never forget to flip the coin of a story and look at the other side.
Many say that this series glamorized Anna’s fraudulent activities and made her seem like a modern day Robin Hood. I think it was deeper than that.
It’s kind of like how there are so many true crime documentaries that get into the psyche of people who do bad things. Any person’s story and decision making is super layered.
Add their internal issues to the external world of social media and societal pressure and the product is someone like Anna.
The series managed to look at several aspects using the same two-sided scope: journalistic ethics, Rachel-type characters, career-driven women’s balance with motherhood, and more.
To be honest, I’m not sure if I was buying the baby neglect and news story coverage being prioritized over being a mother storyline, though. From Vivian’s perspective I understood it to an extent, but I think her husband’s character was more patient than most would be in the situation.
Some tension from that side might have elevated the human element of this story, much like it was shown for the lawyer and his wife.
I thought Inventing Anna was not just a great piece of social commentary, but an excellent microscope dissecting modern society and values.
What did you think of Inventing Anna?