What to Watch If You Enjoyed My Friend Anna

I hope enjoyed our April book! I found it was the perfect, engaging read for my travels over the last few weeks - with one exception! While out of town I had a fraud alert trigger on one of my credit cards, so I woke up one morning with an inbox full of messages about “can’t complete your billing” and “please contact us for payment”. It was a bit too much of a "life imitating art” moment for me!

Anyway, once I finished the book, I had to check out the new Netflix series “Inventing Anna”. It’s from Shonda Rhimes (our January author!) so I knew it would be good! I found it to be a great companion to the book - same subject but different perspective.

Inventing Anna

Inventing Anna follows a reporter named Vivian Kent — a fictionalized rendering of journalist Jessica Pressler, who wrote the viral New York Magazine article on which Inventing Anna is based — as she tries to unravel a mystery that keeps her up at night: How did Anna Delvey, a young Russian-born German citizen legally named Anna Sorokin, convince members of New York City's high society that she was a German heiress whom they should lend money to in order to finance her ambitious business dreams? To find out, she interviews Delvey in jail, as well as Delvey's friends/victims, and they all tell their side of the story about how Anna made them believe in her, in spite of her vague backstory, shady behavior, and general lack of social graces. 

The Dropout

Based on the podcast of the same name, The Dropout stars Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes, a convicted fraudster who lied about the capabilities of her health-tech company, Theranos, to achieve breakthroughs in blood testing. The show touches on experiences that likely motivated Holmes’ deceptions and lies, starting from her preteens all the way to her exposure as a fraud.

The Thing About Pam

Renée Zellweger delivers a transformative performance as Pam Hupp, whose husband was initially convicted in the 2011 murder of Betsy Faria, then later exonerated. But Faria’s killing, and the subsequent investigation, led to even more crimes and scheming. Pam might’ve had something to do with it all. You can watch it on Peacock and Hulu.

Bad Vegan

The docuseries is Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives. follows Sarma Melngailis, a prominent vegan chef in New York City who ended up getting involved with an abusive con artist named "Shane Fox" (real name Anthony Strangis), which led to a downward spiral of theft, fraud, and lamming it. It reached an ironic climax when Melngailis and Strangis got caught because Strangis ordered a Domino's pizza to their hotel.

We Crashed

Jared Leto stars as Adam Neumann, WeWork’s founder, with Anne Hathaway as his wife, Rebekah. America Ferrera also stars in this look at how this company, founded in 2010 on the basis of monetizing shared working spaces, faced a crisis when its initial public offering of stock in 2019 failed. Turned out the books were slightly cooked. The eight episode series is on AppleTV+.

The Act

Joey King and Patricia Arquette both took home Emmys for their turns in The Act, based on the true story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, and the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, who had forced her adult daughter to pretend to be a child suffering from leukemia, asthma and other disabilities. 

Dirty John

The success of Dirty John really helped jumpstart the trend of turning true crime into high drama. Based on the podcast of the same name, it initially premiered on Bravo in 2018, with Eric Bana starring as the John who conned Connie Britton’s Debra Newell, who was just looking for luck in love on dating websites after only four failed marriages. The second season, Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story, starred Christian Slater with Amanda Peet playing Betty Broderick, and had its initial airing on USA.

The Catch

The specifics of The Catch are different from Inventing Anna, but it's a Shondaland show about a con artist, so the overall vibe is pretty similar. It's a breezy, quippy drama with elaborate scams and glamorous costumes. Mireille Enos stars as Alice Vaughan, Los Angeles' top private investigator, who is pursuing Mr. X, a thief who's always one step ahead of her. And the reason he's always one step ahead of her is that he's her fiancé . In the pilot, he absconds with all of her money and client data. So the rest of the show follows Alice as she pursues Mr. X, Mr. X as he carries out his cons, and Alice's employees as they work the case of the week. And of course, there's the complication that Alice is still in love with the charming scoundrel who took everything from her.