Review: 'Inventing Anna' Stuffed with Loathsome Characters

Jessica Pressler's 2017 New York magazine article about a fake heiress scamming bankers, other power players and various Big Apple glitterati is now a 10-hour limited series on Netflix. The tagline is: "This whole story is completely true. Except for the parts that are totally made up." And it's exhausting, because every single character is unlikeable, in a growing line of shows where the rich get richer, like "Billions" and "Succession," and the viewers feel defeated.

"Inventing Anna" follows Russian-born, German-raised 26-year-old Anna (Julie Garner) as she fabricates an origin story as a wealthy European scion with a beefy trust fund. Pregnant Vivian, a version of Pressler (Anna Chlumsky), writes for the fictional periodical Manhattan, and sees uncovering the tentacles of this elaborate scam as a way to redeem her journalistic career after a major misstep.

Vivian and three aging colleagues (Anna Deavere Smith, and Steppenwolf Theater ensemble members Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry), relegated to a faraway set of cubicles they dub "Scriberia," research, then interview Anna's friends, both former and current, plus her scam targets to fund her eponymous arts foundation, like Soho House, at the 40-million-dollar 281 Park Avenue building.

Every single detail along the way is plumbed and played out, such as many calls to credit card companies to track fraudulent use that are seemingly reenacted in real time. Binging the series feels like a claustrophobic relationship, where watchers might feel compelled to find any good actions, but are instead stuck with a sea of transactional people and a litany of their selfish actions.

Anna will do or say anything to achieve the American Dream. But Vivian uses Anna to bring her credibility back from the margins, Anna's lawyer Todd (Airan Moayed) wants to win Anna's case to bring himself more visibility and clients, and even Anna's friends – like hotel concierge Neff (powerful Alexis Floyd) – use Anna for her $100 tips and to ride her phony coattails into financing a film. In what might be a rags-to-riches or Robin Hood-type tale, these extra helpings of unbridled greed and narcissism make enjoyment of the narrative difficult.

Anna's accent is grating, shrill and nasal, turning her "th" sounds into a generic "f," in sentences like "What do you FINK about everyFING?" Vivian turns the nursery into a work brainstorming situation, barely pausing to give birth, and then leaves breastfeeding her newborn daughter to follow a new lead (and leak milk through her blouse during interviews). She's also unsympathetic and even cruel to her compassionate husband, Jack (Anders Holm).

All the characters are obsessed with making their real lives emulate fake Instagram stories. Anna is mean, judgmental, and manipulative to make her dreams match her plans, swanning around "in a baby doll dress with her boobs out" and bamboozling around the globe, including an ill-fated sojourn to Morocco. Anna likes to demean all her acolytes, calling them, their clothes, and their dreams, basic. But this entire story merely chronicles the lowest common denominators within the upper echelons.

"Inventing Anna" premieres February 11 on Netflix.