When I came across the trailer for Inventing Anna, I was sure this was going to be a show that was perfect for me and the wife to watch together. We love crime and mystery dramas and as Inventing Anna is based on the true story of con artist, Anna Delvey/Sorokin, we thought it would be fun. Well, I am not exactly sure fun is how I would describe this rather long and drab show.
How to Download Inventing Anna
You can download or stream the film from Netflix. Click on the Download button at the end of this review.
The Movie Review
While I was only slightly familiar with this case when it went down, my wife knew quite a bit about it as she is big into social media. The premise of the show is that we have this German woman who is posing as a German heiress and she makes her way to the most amazing city in the world, New York.
While in New York, Anna ends up becoming the talk of the New York social scene and has all these powerful people eating up everything that she says and does. Anna uses this to con people out of money. Some question who Anna really is, but many find her charms too hard to resist. Anna wants to open up her own club and she is going to use any tricks she can to con the money out of people to make it happen.
Now, that is one part of the story, but there is also another. Vivian Kent is a struggling writer who manages to get the go-ahead to write a story about who Anna Delvey is. She ends up going to Rikers Island to talk with her and the relationship between the two as she tries to piece together who this person really is could have been very interesting to watch.
The thing is, Inventing Anna is a show that lasts about three to four episodes longer than it should! This is not a bad show, but it is also not a very exciting or entertaining one either, it feels way too stretched out. Plus, a huge problem the show has is that right from the start Anna Delvey is a very unlikeable character.
Julia Garner (check her out in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For as Marcie) plays Anna very well and I am guessing we are not supposed to actually like her. However, when she has so much screen time, it kind of turns you off the show. Her counterpart, Vivian who is played by Anna Chlumsky is a much better character and I actually wanted her to pull off this story she was going for.
The whole mystery aspect of who Anna really is started out as something that I was very interested to find out. Then about four episodes in I found myself not really caring anymore and thinking what the heck could possibly happen to make the remaining five episodes entertaining!
I have to say that this is not one of the better Netflix crime/mystery dramas that they have done. I think there is an interesting story here and had it been condensed into say, five episodes, it could have worked. If you like the look of the trailer, give the first two episodes a try, but if that does not grab you, I would recommend not bothering with the rest.
