Inventing Anna review: Julia Garner shines in the captivating series

4/5

Story:

The Netflix series follows an investigation of a journalist from New York about a famous German heiress, who turns out to be a con woman and one of the biggest felons. 

Review:

Julie Garner is a chameleon, who gets deep into her character and can switch expressions in a blink. Besides her, the makers have cast the most skilful ensemble of actors in this show.  

Inventing Anna is about a 20-something girl, who wants to make it big in the USA and achieve her American Dream. The show is inspired by the New York magazine article “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York's Party People” by Jessica Pressler. Each episode begins with an interesting disclaimer that says a lot in itself – The whole story is completely true. Except for all the parts that are totally made up.”  

“The Life of a VIP” is the first episode, where journalist Vivan Kent (Anna Chlumsky), based on real-life journalist Jessica Pressler, asks her boss to investigate the curious case of a German heiress who goes by the name of Anna Delvey.  

Set across two timelines – Inventing Anna shows the protagonist live like a princess, and then as an infamous scamster-turned-prisoner who is visited by Vivian. The pregnant journalist begins her investigation by meeting with Anna first and everyone in New York who’s ever known her. Anna behaves like a bad-mouthed spoilt brat but still manages to squeeze out empathy from Vivian, who just wants to know the reality.  

James Cusati-Moyer's character of fashion designer and Saamer Usmani's character named Chase, who is Anna's lover are some of the crucial people of the lead actress' life in the first half of the series. As the series progresses, Arian Moayed, Katie Lowes, Alexis Floyd and Laverne Cox turn out to be the most important characters next to Garner and Chlumsky. 

Garner has also aced the accent of a German, which completes her character. Anna is the most confident and cocky in the series as Garner doesn't lose her self-assured attitude even in a single scene. While Chlumsky's journalist is the most intelligent and strong character in the entire series. Even after being pregnant and exhausted most of the time, Vivian doesn't leave a single chance to investigate this most important story of her life. 

With the beautiful landscapes of New York that has been captured with perfection by the cinematographer Maryse Alberti and his team, the Netflix series has nailed the creativity in terms of the looks of the actors and their costumes.

The 'fake it till you make it' idea of Anna Delvey is certainly a bang on in the show.  

The end is not predictable because it all depends on the court's decisions, however, it's not also very shocking. Inventing Anna keeps the audience stuck to the screen till the end and it definitely doesn't disappoint. 

Verdict:

The Shonda Rhimes created show has definitely one of the finest pieces of art on Netflix to binge on and it shouldn't be missed at all. I just have a tiny complaint that the length of the show could have been a bit short and not an hour for each episode.