BY ELIZABETH EGAN, STAFF WRITER
This whole story is completely true, except for the parts we totally made up.
This phrase appeared at the beginning of every episode of the Netflix miniseries, “Inventing Anna.” While the series is based on the real story of a fake German Heiress, the second part of that statement makes it so that all the facts need not get in the way of making a compelling story.
For anyone interested in learning about the real Anna Sorokin, a quick Google search will reveal a plethora of informative articles. I particularly enjoyed those by New York Times reporter, Emily Palmer, who followed Anna through her trial and gave her thoughts on the accuracy of the Netflix version.
The show features the character of Anna played by Julia Garner, alongside the fictional journalist Vivian Kent played by Anna Chlumsky. The show follows Kent working on a feature story about Sorokin after she had been arraigned and sent to Rikers without bail before her lengthy trial for fraud and larceny. Kent follows Sorkin’s fall from grace as the twenty-year-old goes from socialite to businesswoman on the rise to a 4-12 year prison sentence.
The main question everyone is trying to answer in the show is “Who is Anna Delvy?” And yes, this is different from the last name mentioned previously because for most of her time in America Anna decides to go by this last name. She was born in Russia but moved to Germany at age 15. For whatever reason, she decided to bury her Russian roots and proclaim herself to be a German heiress right down to the accent. In her early 20s she arrives in New York and quickly becomes a part of high society. She befriends all the right people, and not only those that will pay her way, but those who can introduce her to more of the right people.
She is ultimately trying to open an exclusive art club called the Anna Delvy Foundation. Not only does the promise of her fortune back in Germany help her recruit a team of talented architects, curators, chefs, etc., and nearly receive a 40-million-dollar loan, it also makes it so that nobody questions the line, “I will pay you back.” Not paying people back or not paying them at all for services is what gets her into trouble for the grand sum of $200,000. That was just the money she owed to people who bothered to press charges. There was also the theft of a plane mixed in there.
The show could have taken us through all this without putting it in the perspective of a journalist. In my opinion, this is what makes the show so engaging. When Anna Sorkin sold Netflix the right to use her story, they could have made it all about her. But is that a show everyone wants to watch? A show about a young girl who pretended to be richer than she was.
Instead, this story is shown through the eyes of a journalist, committed to gathering every detail into what Sorokin did and more importantly, why.
The perspective of the journalist gives the show a way to discuss the societal implications that went into Sorokin’s crimes. The treatment of women and immigrants in the business world, class mobility, and among other things, how even the idea of money can vastly impact how a person is treated.
Finally, what was interesting about the portrayal of Anna Sorkin, was that as a viewer, I was not convinced she was the con artist her conviction suggests. Watch “Inventing Anna” on Netflix and decide for yourself. You might even find that there is a little bit of Anna in you.
