Inventing Anna - Netflix

[HeyItsPickleRick]

I've been obsessed with this case since listening to The Fake Heiress on BBC sounds. Is anyone else watching?! I love the casting of Anna.

@JunkIsland

Going against the grain here - I can’t get enough of this. I don’t think I’d be bored if they’d stretched it out to 15 episodes. I find I enjoy vicariously being immersed in Anna’s world so I’m not in any hurry to rush through the plot points.

I’m half way through Rachel’s episode (7) and so far Val, Alan and Kacy have been the best episodes. Neff a bit disappointing as her story wasn’t as high tension as the others.

I did read an article at the time it all came out, but don’t remember much of the detail so I’ve just accepted all of this as it unfurled. She makes Simon Leviev and the other Netflix-famous con artists look like rank amateurs with the scale of her ambition!

I agree!!

The scale of her ambition was wild!
I'm still baffled by the hotel bills, I've only ever managed to get into a hotel room without a credit card on the account, when the room has been pre-paid for via work. The most expensive room I stayed in cost £250 per night - so how she managed to stay for weeks on end with no working credit card is truly baffling.

I laughed really hard over how she managed to get access to the private jet

I’ve spent all of ep 4 trying to work out who plays Alan! Got it in the last 5 minutes.

I didn't think it was too long, I thought it was well done. I enjoyed every episode.

I think it was a clever, philosophical piece, questioning New York culture, capitalism- the whole inequality of the financial system, money following money etc.

Much of it was grey. People thought she was rich, and she learned she didn't have to ask, they would offer. I assume that's why she was found not guilty of stealing from Rachel, Rachel used the services, and then offered to pay. The plane, she didn't say in the email she'd pay, etc. The doctor suggested her father was an alcoholic, not her. etc.

There were the black and white bits of fraud- forging the paperwork etc. However, what if her father did have money?

So many questions! She does appear to have a warped logic, I guess that's sociopathic? I wondered whether she was being played as having ASD? Very black and white thinking, special interests, socially awkward. Or personality disorder. She's clearly not 'normal'.

I can see the logic that money isn't real, especially in New York. Those thousands of dollars- none of it is real, just electronic numbers floating around, in theory. If she really believed that her idea for ADF was genius, and would pay off, then it was simply a cash flow problem- faking it until it was real. People offered things, she took them. And if they didn't offer, she just waited until they did. She obviously lacks something- ethics, clearly.

Then what should society do with people like this? Sociopaths, people who just don't appear to understand the normal rules? Back to the big questions of who makes the rules. If someone doesn't understand or believe in the rules, is that as bad as someone who knows the rules, but thinks they're exempt?

I found the whole thing, and the original article, fascinating.

Due to the show being fictionalised I'm not clear how close she really got to her vision. In the show it seems like she had actually put the work in and had a firm plan to bring her Park Ave dream to reality if only the money had been approved.

Was that true though? Or was the reality more like Fyre Fest or Theranos where the idea was doomed to failure no matter the level of funding and she most likely would have taken the money and legged it out of the US?

I also found myself wondering how many other start up ventures (usually by men) have looked remarkably similar to this at inception but we never hear about it because their vision got funded and they went on to be a huge success. Part of that success being they could afford to pay off outstanding debts and disgruntled former friends.

Or maybe she is just a sociopathic grifter? It took an awful lot of chutzpah (or insanity?) to go stay at the rather intimidating 5* Moroccan resort knowing you have zero way of paying for it. It's not even clear whether she realised her friend would be able to find a way to pay.

@OvaHere I didn't really understand how she expected to make a profit from AFD. leasing that amazing building would have been £££ and she clearly wanted very high spec renovations and would have needed to purchase incredibly expensive art. It was going to be a members club; who was her target audience? Why AFD over the plethora of members clubs in New York? It sounded amazing, but it sounded more like a vanity project than a business tbh.

Plus Anna would have demanded a very extravagant lifestyle on top of the high start up costs. the £40 million the banks would have loaned her would not have been enough. It may have been Fyre all over again.

@OvaHere oops typo ADF

It took an awful lot of chutzpah (or insanity?) to go stay at the rather intimidating 5 Moroccan resort knowing you have zero way of paying for it. It's not even clear whether she realised her friend would be able to find a way to pay.*

The way the drama portrayed it was that Rachel suggested the trip, at no point checked Anna was happy to bankroll, and then Rachel paid... I can see someone like Anna thinking "I never said I'd pay..."

I feel that she would have opened the ADF if they gave her the money. She was looking to be Important more than anything else. It had to be grandiose to match her sense of self.

I also kind of think the ADF might have been a success. At least for a while. It is a brilliant example of how the whole system is all fur coat and no knickers. The rich fools would all have joined the exclusive club and marvelled about the architecture and the art and restaurants. And the hype would have built.

Longer term, she’d probably get bored and increase her ambitions in ways that ultimately exposed her for what she is. But I do think that she’s have used the money to make herself a cornerstone of NY society. The journalist was right that she wants to be famous and have everyone think she’s brilliant and clever.

She wasn’t as clever as she thinks she is. Or at least, her narcissistic rage over-rid that I’m various ways. Otherwise she’d never have committed the credit card fraud that would so obviously trace back to her (even if the woman was too embarrassed to publicly say anything).

[quote onlychildhamster]@OvaHere I didn't really understand how she expected to make a profit from AFD. leasing that amazing building would have been £££ and she clearly wanted very high spec renovations and would have needed to purchase incredibly expensive art. It was going to be a members club; who was her target audience? Why AFD over the plethora of members clubs in New York? It sounded amazing, but it sounded more like a vanity project than a business tbh.

Plus Anna would have demanded a very extravagant lifestyle on top of the high start up costs. the £40 million the banks would have loaned her would not have been enough. It may have been Fyre all over again.[/quote]
I don’t think she cared about the profit. She just wanted to be the most important.

It had to have that really fancy building. The right artists. A nobu. It had to reflect how she sees herself.

But for all the claims of being a brilliant at business, I don’t think she really cared beyond being the most important thing in NY society.

It would probably have been more successful, at least initially, than the fyre festival because she’d managed to pull in a bunch of very competent people who’d have made it work (and had the names to attract everyone to it). It would have had a brilliant few weeks until it becomes apparent that no one was thinking about the water bill etc.

Soho House and the other NYC private members’ clubs make money. So might ADF, if it had happened. New York has more millionaires than any other city and is a hub for billionaires. If rich people thought somewhere was hot and, crucially, priced to keep out the riffraff, they would 100% pay a $50k joining fee then a $10k, say, annual subscription for access to an exclusive club and a veneer of cool. I suspect that Anna saw this particular human weakness only too clearly!

@fakegermanheiress

It took an awful lot of chutzpah (or insanity?) to go stay at the rather intimidating 5 Moroccan resort knowing you have zero way of paying for it. It's not even clear whether she realised her friend would be able to find a way to pay.*

The way the drama portrayed it was that Rachel suggested the trip, at no point checked Anna was happy to bankroll, and then Rachel paid... I can see someone like Anna thinking "I never said I'd pay..."

I must have missed that bit. I thought it was her idea. I probably binged it a bit too fast.

In that case they are all a bit crazy!

@DoNotTouchTheWater @Iamthewombat

Yes I'm leaning towards thinking it might have worked at least in the short term if capable people oversaw it and she stayed as the 'face'.

Longer term, as you say, she would have dipped into the pot to fund the lifestyle and that would be an issue unless someone else controlled the budget.

I really enjoyed this. I agree it was a bit disjointed and difficult to follow in places but I think that was deliberate. Anna has still never told the truth about her motives, never shown remorse etc, so the story is a patch work of other people's opinions and recollections, mixed with a few hard facts.

I also enjoyed it! I was gob smacked at the Morocco episode and surprised that Rachel got such a bad edit towards the end.

I thought the Anna actress was great. I found Vivian a bit annoying. I felt so sorry for her poor husband.

I didn't know the story beforehand, so maybe that affected things.

It didn't blow my mind like the Fyre Festival doc, but it was a good watch.

I think that Anna thought her loan would be through by Morocco so was flying by the seat of her pants thinking that at any moment the money would arrive.

Just on the kacy episode. It definitely could have been shortened.
It riles me how kacy was played by Cox and that no one seemingly has a problem with this. Double standards compared to recent actors who have been slammed for taking roles people perceive they shouldn't have taken.

I finished this yesterday. I remember reading all about it when the case broke out in the media. I thought it was fascinating how she was able to convince these fancy people she belonged in their world. I liked it as a drama but it did have some flaws.

The impression the show gave was that Anna started to really believe the lies she told. I think she genuinely saw herself as a “business woman” and felt like if she could get the loan, she could make the vision happen. The reality is that she probably wouldn’t have made any money in the first year of setting up the business. She had the vision but not the figures needed. I agree with pp, she’d have been dipping into the pot and it would have gone tits up.

I don’t think many people in this story cover themselves in glory. It paints a picture of people who faun over apparent wealth and status. I’d be interested to read Rachel’s story.

HBO are making Rachel’s story.

www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/my-misadventure-with-the-magician-of-manhattan

Here you go. Rachel’s story, as told to Vanity Fair. Full of self pity and attempts to make herself sound clever, as if she belonged in Anna’s imaginary world of art appreciation and extreme wealth.

“Her world wasn’t foreign to me—I was comfortable there—and I was pleased that she could tell, that she accepted me as someone who “got it.”

“My eyes scanned the setup and paused on a photograph…part of a series by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. Light emanated from a seemingly blank, rectangular movie screen, casting its glow out from the center of the composition onto the empty stage, seats, and theater…the result was otherworldly. Looking at his work always reminded me of Shakespeare, a play within a play…the viewing experience was meta and inverted”

(Somebody call pseuds’ corner!)

The magazine obviously saw through her, though. They sub-titled Rachel’s piece, “as an added bonus, she paid for everything”. Despite Rachel working for Vanity Fair. Not very sympathetic treatment from her own employer.

I've just bought Rachel's book... I think it will be an...interesting....read

@Iamthewombat

www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/my-misadventure-with-the-magician-of-manhattan

Here you go. Rachel’s story, as told to Vanity Fair. Full of self pity and attempts to make herself sound clever, as if she belonged in Anna’s imaginary world of art appreciation and extreme wealth.

“Her world wasn’t foreign to me—I was comfortable there—and I was pleased that she could tell, that she accepted me as someone who “got it.”

“My eyes scanned the setup and paused on a photograph…part of a series by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. Light emanated from a seemingly blank, rectangular movie screen, casting its glow out from the center of the composition onto the empty stage, seats, and theater…the result was otherworldly. Looking at his work always reminded me of Shakespeare, a play within a play…the viewing experience was meta and inverted”

(Somebody call pseuds’ corner!)

The magazine obviously saw through her, though. They sub-titled Rachel’s piece, “as an added bonus, she paid for everything”. Despite Rachel working for Vanity Fair. Not very sympathetic treatment from her own employer.

Thanks!! It's a good read but she's a horrible writer. There's no way I could get through an entire book of hers.

Oh dear. Still she owed them $60k on her VF Amex didn't she? So hopefully that helped towards it.

Actually she was scamming VF out of $62k by using her work credit card for this shit.

She ended up with egg on her face.

Who uses their work credit card for that? Seriously.

No matter whether you think your millionaire friend will pay it bank. You don’t whip out vanity fair’s money at all. Most companies would consider it misconduct even if it were paid back.

As interesting as what she did was, I found this series to be drawn out drivel. They could have made a film instead and it would have been better.