Real-Life Scam Artist Meets Netflix

The show Inventing Anna grabbed my attention as soon as I saw the bits and pieces of popular scenes floating around on TikTok. Once, I went on Netflix after hearing people enjoyed the show, I quickly understood why. The consistent drama and turmoil throughout the show pulls you in, while simultaneously keeping you up with the events based on the true story of Anna Sorokin.

Anna Sorokin (also known as Anna Delvey), is a con artist who stole thousands from wealthy individuals and attempted to steal millions from major financial institutions by trying to get them to finance and fund her social club, the Anna Delvey Foundation (ADF). The show tells the story of her life from the perspective of a reporter trying to get a juicy story to save her career. The story of how Sorokin scammed people was sold and turned into a Netflix show.

Shonda Rhimes, the same person who created Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, also injects gripping drama into the plot of Inventing Anna. It’s definitely an eye-opener to what lengths people will go to have fame and fortune tied to their names, plus what happens to them if they eventually fall as a result of risky actions. While the show has its fair share of outlandish drama in it, the human emotions portrayed in the series are more complex than some may realize.

Since the show is considered a drama based on facts with some fabricated stories interlaced in it, each episode begins with this disclaimer: “The whole story is completely true. Except for all the parts that are totally made up.” This emphasizes the sense of symbolism in some of the characters. One of the characters, Nora Radford (played by Kate Burton) represents Manhattan’s wealthy elites that Anna targets. While she is not a real person and her story with Delvey is made up, she represents the many who were scammed in real life.

The majority of the characters, based on real people (with the exception of Anna Sorokin/Delvey) do not have their real names mentioned in the show, possibly to protect the media company from lawsuits. For example, Vivian Kent is based off of the real-life reporter, Jessica Pressler, who wrote an article about Anna Delvey, published by The Cut in the New York Magazine.

The show is shown through the eyes of reporter Vivian Kent and her chase to unravel the seemingly never-ending secrets of Anna Delvey. Everywhere she goes and anyone she speaks to seems to have new information to tell her, which kept me on my seat and left me wondering about what else Delvey had been up to.

What I liked the most about the show is that it keeps a sense of transparency, especially when it pertains to the characters. You can see the inner turmoil that Delvey goes through when she realizes that her scams are about to fall apart, as well as Kent’s frustration with the building pressure of her job clashing with her pregnancy.

Inventing Anna will keep you riveting and wanting to research the truth about the real Anna Delvey. I highly recommend that people should watch this show if they enjoy a drama series and don’t mind a true story being twisted to entertain its audience.