‘Inventing Anna’ review: A tale of wasted potential
Anna Delvey, who swindled New York’s elite out of hundreds of thousands of dollars – if only the show had faith in its own premise. Now streaming on Netflix, “Inventing Anna” is based on a viral 2018 New York Magazine article about Delvey (nee Sorokin), 31 — Russian-born and raised in Germany — who defrauded banks, hotels and acquaintances while posing as a trust-fund heiress in New York between 2013-2017. She was convicted for multiple accounts of grand larceny, indicted in 2017 and incarcerated from 2019-2021. Helmed by Shonda Rhimes and starring Julia Garner (“Ozark”) — a skilled actress who seems to have been given bad directing to hide behind a distracting marble-mouthed accent to play Delvey — “Inventing Anna” is a bloated affair, with episodes regularly clocking in at over an hour, which feels punishing.