Binge-r #275: Inventing Anna + Reacher
Smooth Operator: Julie Garner (Anna Sorokin) in Inventing Anna
INVENTING ANNA
Streaming Service: Netflix
Availability: All 10 episodes now streaming
Whatever the format, the story of Anna Sorokin, a gifted Russian grifter who carved her way without paying through fashionable New York society as Anna Delvey before being arrested and eventually jailed, is compelling. Jessica Pressler’s 2018 New York magazine article on Sorokin was a must-read, and the rights to it were purchased by powerhouse creator Shonda Rhimes (Scandal, Bridgerton) for this limited series. But the result, with the addition of some incisive invention, is a thankfully richer and more considered portrait not just of Sorokin, who is played with compelling inscrutability by Julia Garner, but the scene and the society she infiltrated. Inventing Anna is a story of perceptions and profiles, the lustre of entitlement, and the pathology of deception. The fakery here runs deeper than a surname.
“I want the career I was supposed to have,” says Vivian Kent (Anna Chlumsky), the fictional reporter at Manhattan magazine documenting the newly incarcerated Delvey/Sorokin. Pregnant and haunted by a previous story’s crushing misstep, Vivian is a worthy foil for Anna. Even on Riker’s Island, the haughty heiress proclaims her wealth and insults the journalist digging up her truth. The show is about those who have and those who do not, and what people are willing to do to bridge that gap. The depiction of Vivian grasping a yarn that could be her comeback is sharp, notably her transactions with the many people Anna deceived. Anna herself is not simply trying to avoid the bill, her deception comes with ambition so grand – she’s trying to raise millions to finance her vision – as to be psychologically cutting. Anna might steal a private jet flight or brazenly dupe “friends”, but her cons also speak to the frustration of not being who you want to be.
Between The Americans, Ozark, and The Assistant, Julia Garner is already one of the finest young American actors (she’s so good you could be forgiven for thinking she’s a British import), and she plays Anna as a hall of mirrors, each reflecting back a necessary version. The narrative gets into the space between clear cut verdicts, so that stories are told from different perspectives and Anna can go from criminal to a young female hopeful shut out of male privilege; a scene where Anna is put on the spot in a Paris hotel and can’t produce a credit card takes her into a fugue state, yet still in character, that is far beyond mere comeuppance. Juicy moments abound, but the episodes are dense and detailed, with a telling double act between Anna and Vivian taking shape. Savour each impressive instalment.
Pecs Symbol: Malcolm Goodwin (Finlay) and Alan Ritchson (Reacher) in Reacher
REACHER S1 (Amazon, all eight episodes now streaming): Fans of Lee Child’s popular series of crime novels about a righteous American veteran who is basically Sherlock Holmes inside Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator body cast significant side eye at the film adaptation starring Tom Cruise. Too small, too old. This series, made with Child’s imprimatur, course corrects with Alan Ritchson as a suitably jacked Jack Reacher, who arrives in the small Georgia town of Margrave and stumbles into a criminal conspiracy and multiple parking lot fights. “Think real hard before you finish that sentence,” begins a typical Reacher warning, “because it will determine how well your jaw will work for the rest of your life.” Unyielding to everything but removing his shirt, Reacher is a throwback – Ritchson’s voice even compares to a young Clint Eastwood. As local police officers and wary collaborators, Malcolm Goodwin and Willa Fitzgerald are solid foils, but creator Nick Santora (Scorpion) has crafted an action-thriller that is not just unfussy, but too clean. It could do with some pulp energy in the direction and a greater sense of place – the racial politics and population of Margrave feel barely connected to reality.
>> Further Reading: The fine young cannibals of Yellowjackets turned out to be one of the best new shows of last year, and now that the first season has concluded I wrote about Paramount+’s delicious and daring horror-drama and its depiction of survivors for The Age.
NEWLY ADDED MOVIES
New on Netflix: Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor are high wattage names, but the London-set lockdown romantic heist flick Locked Down (2021, 117 minutes) is a dull use of both their talents and a stacked supporting cast; Beanie Feldstein cops a decent British accent in How to Build a Girl (2020, 104 minutes), an irreverent but genuine adaptation of Caitlin Moran’s coming of age memoir about reinventing herself as a London music journalist.
New on SBS on Demand: Jeremy Irons gives an immense performance as twins – one domineering, the other recessive – in David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers (1988, 112 minutes), a chilly horror classic whose precise compositions can barely contain the psychological self-destruction of two gynaecologists whose symbiotic connection is torn asunder when they both become involved with Genevieve Bujold’s actress.
New on Stan: Steven Knight’s Locke (2014, 85 minutes) simply puts a man in a car and watches him drive to London, desperately talking on the phone as his life implods – Tom Hardy makes it compelling; The Bank Job (2008, 113 minutes) has perhaps the least punches thrown in a Jason Statham film, opting instead for a tensely observed 1970s London heist film with Saffron Burrows as a capable foil.
>> Missed the last BINGE-R? Click here to catch up on Disney+’s wild 1990s ride Pam & Tommy and Apple TV+’s new conspiracy thriller Suspicion.
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>> Check the complete BINGE-R archive: 363 series reviewed here, 163 movies reviewed here, and 44 lists compiled here.
