Inventing Anna

Anna Delvey presents herself as a wealthy German heiress with expensive tastes and ambitious plans. Journalist Vivian Kent wants to find out how much of the story holds up, and why so many people were willing to accept it in the first place.

Julia Garner plays Anna with extraordinary confidence and a very distinctive voice. Anna Chlumsky plays Vivian, whose professional interest becomes a determined pursuit. Shonda Rhimes developed the series from Jessica Pressler's reporting, with fictionalisation throughout the dramatisation.

I enjoyed the nerve of it: an unpaid bill becomes somebody else's failure to understand Anna's importance. The show is less convincing when it stretches that fascination across another long detour. Garner remains the strongest reason to watch.

There are nine episodes in this limited series. For more of Garner, Ozark gives her a very different kind of formidable character. Read my full Inventing Anna review.