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«Inventing Anna»: Series about a German imposter
Julia Garner plays one of the main roles in «Inventing Anna». Photo: Aaron Epstein/Netflix/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Luxury vacation in Morocco, flight in a private jet, eating in fancy restaurants: the German imposter Anna Sorokin surreptitiously stole services worth around $200,000 in New York.
The story itself seemed too crazy to be real – and it quickly becomes clear that the film adaptation is no different. “The whole story is completely true,” says the trailer for the Netflix series “Inventing Anna,” “except for all the parts that are totally made up.”
It’s about Anna Sorokin, born in 1991 near Moscow. As a teenager, she moved to Germany with her parents and graduated from high school in Eschweiler near Aachen. So far, so unspectacular – but then Sorokin moved via London and Paris to New York, where she finally posed as an heiress to millions in Manhattan’s high society under the pseudonym Anna Delvey and – according to a court in 2019 – services worth more than $ 200,000 (about 175,000 euros) surreptitiously.
She duped rows and rows of acquaintances, hotels, restaurants and banks – sometimes she claimed to have forgotten her credit card, sometimes she blamed German public holidays or the time difference for a missing transfer and even managed to sneak a flight with a private jet and a luxury vacation to Morocco.
“The thing is, I’m not sorry,” Sorokin said in an interview after the trial, during which she also delivered a self-promotional show with extravagant clothing choices. ‘I would be lying to you and everyone else if I said I was sorry for anything. I just have regrets about how I approached certain things.”
After the trial, the film adaptation
The process has already made headlines. And now the story of Sorokin has also been made into a film, which can recently be seen as a nine-part series on the Netflix streaming service. “Inventing Anna” was produced by Shonda Rhimes, who was also responsible for hit series such as “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Bridgerton”.
During the trial, Sorokin himself had publicly wished for Hollywood star Jennifer Lawrence as the main actress, but in the end it was Julia Garner, at least far less famous. Anna Chlumsky (“My Girl”) plays Jessica Pressler, a journalist who investigates Sorokin’s story.
“Inventing Anna” was rolled out in the USA with great publicity, the series impresses with glossy images, fast-paced dialogues and creative cuts. But early reviews were mixed. For example, while the radio station NPR celebrated the show as a “creative triumph”, numerous other media criticized that Sorokin was celebrated too much in the series and did not make it sufficiently clear that she was a convicted fraudster.
Rachel Williams, who worked at Vanity Fair magazine and was one of those Sorokin swindled money from, even described the depiction as a “dangerous distortion”.
There as a consultant
Sorokin himself was also involved in «Inventing Anna». She was also paid as a consultant. She used the money to pay off debts and court costs, she said in an interview with the New York Times. The 31-year-old was actually sentenced to four years in prison, but was released in early 2021 after around a year and a half for good behavior.
A few months later, however, she was arrested again because her visa had expired and has since been held in an ICE facility in New York State. She has appealed against being deported to Germany.
She has changed and is now sorry for her decisions, she said in a recent interview. Her cell is very “depressing”, she spends most of her time reading – and she wants to tell more of her story.
Another documentary series has already been announced, and she’s also working on a book and a podcast, says Sorokin. “I don’t want to encourage people to commit crimes. I’m just trying to show how I made the best of my situation without glorifying it.”