Netflix’s Inventing Anna is a drama series based on true events, chronicling the story of Russian immigrant Anna Sorokin (alias Anna Delvey) who infiltrated New York’s elite by posing as a German heiress.
Armed with a sharp eye for fashion, she fabricated an identity as the inheritor of a €60 million trust fund. Through forged documents, unpaid luxury hotel stays, and fraudulent private jet services, she attempted to swindle $25 million from banks to fund a private art club.
The series weaves together two narrative threads:
- Journalist Vivian’s prison interviews uncovering the truth
- Flashbacks revealing how Anna spun a web of lies that deceived elite lawyers, gallery owners, and wealthy socialites
Anna’s motivations are layered with contradictions—she balances ruthless calculation with a desperate craving for validation. Her vanity and obsession are laid bare when she insists on hiring a stylist for her courtroom appearance and even curates her social media image from prison.
The show delivers biting satire on New York’s wealth-obsessed society: Anna’s exaggerated accent and illusion of extravagance effortlessly won trust—until a friend exposed her “debt-funded luxury trip.” Convicted of grand larceny, she served four years in prison, only to rebrand herself as a “scam artist” post-release, selling her story to Netflix for $320,000—the ultimate irony.
Through dark humor, Inventing Anna exposes the rigid class barriers and hollowness of vanity lurking beneath the American Dream.
