If Delvey’s ability to navigate a wine list “like old money” and appreciation for Chanel pumps negate her criminal maneuvers, Rachel, as the human embodiment of “cheugy,” apparently had it coming-and should be thankful Anna ever paid attention to her.
ANNA DELVEY RACHEL DELOACHE WILLIAMS FOR FREE
Meanwhile, Rachel’s enthusiasm for free PT sessions and the Kardashians is made out to be a worse faux par than Anna’s felonies. (Yes, both on- and off-screen, Rachel is privileged in the grand scheme of the rampantly capitalist universe, a fact she is more than aware of in My Friend Anna-but not so privileged that $70,000 of debt has no impact on her life.) For anyone who claims she should have seen through Anna’s deceptions, just ask yourself: If someone who claimed to be waiting on a $50 million trust-who handed out $100 bills like Juicy Fruit-told you she had rented La Mamounia’s sumptuous private residence, would you honestly question her ability to cover it? Would you doubt her when she said a wire would be coming through imminently? Or would you just hand over your goddamn AmEx? It is as if, having been tempted by a luxury Moroccan escape beyond her means, she asked to be tricked out of her yearly salary. This is no Robin Hood figure, redistributing ill-gotten cash she is a failed con artist with reasonably good bone structure.Īs for Inventing Anna’s treatment of the fictional Rachel’s quest for justice? It gets dangerously close to endorsing the sort of logic used to shame the Tinder Swindler’s victims. True, no one’s heart is bleeding for an Upper East Side heiress who failed to notice extortionate Bergdorf Goodman charges or Wall Street suits who escaped 2008 without any consequences, but Anna is still committing fraud-and all with the sole goal of becoming part of the “elite” herself. Every one of Sorokin’s victims is ultimately made out to have come away without any serious negative ramifications. In reality, though, it’s symptomatic of Inventing Anna’s general creative failure: removing all nuance from Delvey’s spectacular rise and fall. It would be more understandable if reimagining Rachel’s character added to the story’s resonance in a meaningful way. In fact, the Vanity Fair staffer is hardly mentioned, with Sorokin even telling Pressler from prison: “I am very upset that things went that way and I didn’t mean for it to happen …But I really can’t do anything about it, being in here.” (Delvey herself received more than $300,000 for her participation in Inventing Anna.) As Williams says, “During the trial, I was aware that both Anna and Anna’s lawyer were working closely with Netflix, who had writers in the courtroom, so it felt like an episode of Black Mirror to then be accused of using my situation for ‘entertainment.’”įrom a moral standpoint, this demonization of a real-life individual is a questionable choice-made more baffling by the fact that Rachel is never a target in Pressler’s feature.
Her reputation’s coup de grâce in Inventing Anna’s crazy narrative arc? The fact that she had the audacity to give the life rights to her story to HBO-a particularly bizarre move to demonize given that Inventing Anna is itself an adaptation of a journalist’s story, and gleefully celebrates Sorokin’s constant fame-grabbing maneuvers across all 10 episodes. (Granted, no one with a WiFi connection is going to struggle to figure out who the “real” Vivian is, but the switch at least marginally distances Shondaland’s creation from Pressler in viewers’ minds.) Also featured prominently: Williams’s actual place of work ( Vanity Fair), the location of her apartment (the West Village), and her alma mater (Kenyon College). In contrast to New York’s Jessica Pressler, who’s reimagined as Vivian Kent of Manhattan magazine for the series, Williams is referred to by her actual name throughout. Inventing Anna does blur the lines between reality and fiction in a peculiar way-and this is where it gets into trouble, particularly when it comes to Rachel Deloache Williams, the real-life photo editor who joined Sorokin on her last-hoorah trip to Marrakech and ended up footing the nearly $70,000 bill. Except for all the parts that are totally made up.” It’s the not-quite disclaimer at the beginning of every installment that feels most misguided, though: “This whole story is completely true. The way that it makes a Celine-obsessed grifter out to be a 21st-century Jay Gatsby, with 281 Park Avenue standing in for Daisy Buchanan.
The fact that most of the episodes are about 20 minutes longer than necessary. There’s a lot that’s aggravating about Inventing Anna.
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