Back in 2018, while I was going on about my monotonous life, the world was caught in a storm by a "fake German heiress". I read the New York Magazine article in equal amounts of disbelief and awestruck admiration of this 20-something con artist who had defrauded various New York elites out of about a quarter of a million dollars by posing as a rich socialite.

Based on this story of the real-life Anna Delvey/Sorokin, lies the premise of the nine-part Netflix mini-series, Inventing Anna. The story contains a lot of the elements of the 2018 exposé, except for all the parts that are totally made up.

The story of Anna Delvey is told from two perspectives. Firstly, of journalist Vivian Kent, who is trying to uncover the exploits of this mysterious Anna Delvey. Then, a glimpse of Anna, played by Julia Garner, as she lived among the New York elites. The two points of view are meshed together so that the audience witnesses both, the journalist uncovering the story in real-time and what actually transpired.

When I initially read about Anna, I pictured a cunning mastermind. This girl had stayed in expensive hotels without having a working credit card on file, had flown in a private jet without paying the bills, and made her friend finance a USD 62,000 Marrakech trip to name just a few of her escapades. But, as I watched these same events unfold in the show, I was thoroughly underwhelmed.

Conning some of New York's biggest establishments, surely, would require intelligence but the show fails to showcase the brilliance with which Anna must have carried out her plans. The scenes where she tries to acquire a loan of 40 million dollars is just watered down to her giving a feeble monologue.

TV's Anna comes off as bratty, for lack of a better term. This is a person who had unabashedly said, "I'm not a good person" and that she does not regret any of her actions. Anna Delvey is a complex, multi-faceted person being squeezed into a one-dimensional character in this dragged out series.

The show was not reflective of the "real" Anna Delvey. But, who really is the true Anna Delvey? I don't know her. What I can say, however, is that the show failed to capture the fascination that grasped those who read the story for the first time back in 2018. The story of Anna Delvey was not "just another true crime story", as it opened the drapes on the lives of certain elites who were dripping with such excesses that they did not care verifying who they were sharing their wealth with. At the same time, it was also a story of a young girl who had connived her way into making all the big leagues believe that she was the real deal. 

But, maybe, I expected too much from visual media and the complex being that Anna is, is better left to each of our imaginations.

Tasnim Odrika has only one personality trait and that is cats. Share ideas for new personality traits with her at odrika_02@yahoo.com