Maud, Lou and Barry. Sometimes the real heroes are the supporting characters; in the new Netflix series “Inventing Anna” they certainly are. Because without exception, all the main characters are selfish dislikes, which is in the essence of the matter: “Inventing Anna” is based on the true story of the impostor Anna Sorokin, a German who posed as an heiress to millions and ripped off New York’s high society. She faked and lied in fancy social circles, dined at expensive restaurants and “borrowed” a private jet for an excursion. She almost got a $25 million loan. Then she flew up. During the trial, she showed up in changing high-fashion wardrobes, but was jailed anyway and became world famous.
Netflix bought the rights to her story. Anna is played by Julia Garner in the miniseries. The actress met the con artist and found her “actually very cute”, she plays her cool, narcissistic, with brief bursts of real feelings that you never really know if they are calculated. However, we do not enter Anna’s world from her point of view, but from that of Vivian, a journalist. Viv is heavily pregnant and works for the Manhattan Magazine. After a journalistic faux pas, she was banished from her editorial office to “Scriberia”, the part of the house where “old writers” are sent to die. There she sits with her colleagues Maud, Lou and Barry. They support Viv unconditionally and loyally in all her projects – because Vivian takes it into her head to write about Anna, who was still unknown at the time, and begins to visit her regularly in prison.
There she is allowed to ask the “million heiress” lovable sentences like “Why are you wearing that? You look poor” or “Are you pregnant or are you just so very, very fat?” listen This is how her investigative journey of discovery into the world of the rich and famous, the world of heated bathroom floors, private yachts, start-up people, and investors begins. It would be incorrect to say that this world “seems beautiful” because it does not. Everyone in her is their own best friend, and whoever says so gets ahead. In it “Inventing Anna” is also the story of how the story came about – you can see the paths of the two women, Annas and Vivians. What connects both of them is that they are constantly busy trying to convince someone of something. That’s the real focus of the show: people convincing other people to do what they want. In between, as it should be, the patriarchy is accused. “Men fail upwards all the time,” says Anna about a banker whose reputation she robbed.
The casting is clearly aimed at making the scammer a popular figure
The strength of the series is that while it hints at these “simple” solutions, it also always debunks them. Later in the series, Vivian wants to find out what made Anna the “monster” she is and visits her family in Germany. She is almost certain that her father was a secret oligarch, a gangster or at least a violent alcoholic. But it’s not that easy.
As she says herself, Anna was always Anna. How far their criminal energy reaches must remain open. The casting is clearly aimed at making the scammer a popular figure. Nevertheless, Mr. Ripley greets from afar. Anna keeps emphasizing the importance of nurturing young female entrepreneurs – she uses that narrative, but how much does her story really have to do with subversion against patriarchy? The real point of the imposture quickly gets lost from view – namely how it exposes the distinctive rituals of the rich as a bitterly serious carnival and thus throws a spotlight on the absurd social class differences. Both scammers and the scammed are primarily concerned with money and power. About being at the top of the pyramid. They are united in greed. The most fundamental discrimination is contempt for the poor. They only appear as a swear word in “Inventing Anna”. “You look poor.”
Anna is no misjudged Robin Hood, she despises the poor as much as everyone else in this series. First and foremost, everyone wants to be among the winners. Rich people don’t have it easy in movies and TV. That may be because a life of luxury always looks a bit ridiculous from the outside – who likes to admit that they need someone they pay to brush their teeth in the morning? Nevertheless, formats about tricksters are booming, shortly before “Inventing Anna” “The Tinder Swindler” was released, which is also about a trickster. They serve voyeurism, the dream of swimming in money oneself, and malice as an outlet for envy in equal measure. Yet these stories never question the goal of being as rich as possible. The real Anna had to use the Netflix money to compensate her victims and complained in a statement about her prison conditions – it was confiscated by ICE after her release from prison. Anna Sorokin does not plan to watch the series. Julia Garner says she respects that.