![]() She bluffs her way onto a private jet without paying and even disguises her voice (!) to pose as a German financier verifying her vast family wealth. The series is surprisingly sympathetic to Anna, too, painting her at times as a #YasQueen girl boss - even as it shows she’s also a liar and a thief. The obscene displays of wealth are intoxicating, and even Vivian gets caught up in it. Through them, we meet Anna’s associates/stepping stones, including her tech developer boyfriend Chase ( What/If‘s Saamer Usmani) and old money socialite Nora (Rhimes regular Kate Burton, who’s joined by Scandal vets Jeff Perry and Katie Lowes). The flashbacks to Anna’s glory days have a seductive, glitzy energy, as she happily uses other people’s money to lounge around on yachts, jet off to Ibiza and sip Champagne in nightclubs and art galleries. ![]() She’s mesmerizing, and she singlehandedly makes this series worth watching with a performance that’s destined to be parodied and imitated for years to come. She spouts off brash one-liners like “Anna Delvey is a masterpiece, bitches!” It’s a risky choice for Garner, an impressive young actor who already has two Emmys on her mantel from Ozark, but it pays off. (She can’t understand why Vivian won’t apply for a media prison visit: “It’s VIP.”) Her accent is as over the top as she is: a snooty, affected creation that’s half German, half Russian and all vocal fry. She’s blunt, bordering on rude (she asks Vivian, “Are you pregnant, or are you just so very, very fat?”), and endlessly obsessed with status. It’s a great story, and in Garner’s hands, Anna is an instantly great TV character: a charismatic villain and a shape-shifting chameleon, adapting to whatever room she’s in. After a few prison visits while she awaits trial, Anna starts confiding in Vivian, claiming she’s innocent, and unspools the twisted tale of how she infiltrated the highest of high society just on charm and bluster. We learn the depths of her deception thanks to the intrepid reporting of Vivian ( Veep‘s Anna Chlumsky), a pregnant journalist who knows there’s a story here and hits the pavement hoping for an exclusive interview with Anna. She plays infamous con artist Anna Delvey, a fake German heiress charged with scamming big money out of New York City’s elite upper crust. It’s maybe too glamorous at times and does suffer a bit from streaming bloat, but it’s an engaging watch, powered by a ferociously weird, utterly fascinating lead performance from Julia Garner. (She’s the series creator this time and wrote the pilot.) It’s a brisk, glamorous crime story that bears several of Rhimes’ hallmarks, along with several Scandal alums in the cast. Shonda Rhimes already made her Netflix debut with Bridgerton, but her new true crime drama Inventing Anna - debuting this Friday I’ve seen the first four episodes - feels even more Shonda-y than that.
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