Netflix paid Anna Sorokin, the German scammer at the heart of this series, $320,000 for the rights to her story. Sorokin used the money to pay back some of the funds she had stolen from banks, and some of the fines she owed the State of New York. Then she got on every talk show and new excerpt she could to keep building her fame.
As of this writing, she is awaiting deportation back to Germany, but is currently sick with COVID. ICE believes she contracted COVID so that she could stay in the US longer, because, after all, Anna is a con artist.
And, just so that we all understand how sociopathy and Hollywood works, the banks were repaid with Anna's story rights. The ordinary human beings whose credit cards and bank accounts she use are still out of money. Despite NY's Son of Sam law, Anna is profiting from her crimes by becoming an antihero through this story written by Shonda Rimes. When we watch this film, we are helping a sociopath profit.
Grifters grift.
Julia Garner does a great job as Anna, although her voice made me want to shoot the TV. Shonda gives us an engaging script. But what's the difference in this an making a movie of OJ's "If I DID IT?" The degree of crime?
I didn't like the idea of elevating a grifter, and I especially didn't like the built in idea that her thefts were okay because she only stole from rich people. She didn't.
She wasn't Robin Hood. She was just a thief.
