Inventing Anna, the new Netflix based-on-real-life show has hit the streaming service and has held onto a top-ten spot for weeks now. With each episode over an hour long and watching it with my family, it was difficult to find time to watch it, but we managed to finish it in a week. It had all of us absolutely infatuated with this genius, Anna Sorokin, alias Anna Delvey, who managed to manipulate the people in her life into thinking she was a German Heiress with a trust fund of over $60 million. As such, she was able to come “dangerously close” to getting funding for her art club on Park Street in New York City, the Anna Delvey Foundation. The Foundation would have been home to the highest classes as a place for them to “escape” Manhattan. The Netflix Original follows journalist Vivian Kent as she unfolds the mystery of this 25-year old girl, ending with the court case that lands her in prison for four to twelve years on multiple charges of grand larceny.
Throughout the show, it bounces from glamorizing Anna’s lie-filled life to showing the real consequences of it. It flips back and forth between the daily, multi-million dollar shopping sprees and Yachts in the Hamptons and being stranded in Morocco because of declined credit cards and, of course, landing in prison. Despite showing the ugly side of the story, it leaves people wondering, “Maybe I could be the one to get away with it.” The series explains each of Anna’s mistakes and, I imagine that there are people who, after watching it, think that they could get away with it if they don’t make the same mistakes. However, the show also does a good job of bringing every mistake back to the fact that the reason for it was that Anna did not have the money to back any of what she was doing. In that way, I think it does a good job of deterring people from attempting such a scam. Either way can be argued, but which is it? I think it depends on the person watching. Is it Anna Sorokin or Anna Delvey?
