Inventing Anna: Truth and Consequences

The wife and I binged Inventing Anna the past few nights, the nine-episode Shonda Rhimes series detailing the real-life rise and fall of Anna Delvey aka Anna Sorokin.  It's superb television, for a bunch a reasons.  Julia Garner in the title role was perfect, peerless, and Emmy-worthy.  Pretty much the same for Anna Chlumsky who plays Vivian Kent, the fictitious name for the real reporter Jessica Pressler whose New York magazine story "How Anna Delvey Tricked New York's Party People" is the basis of the Netflix series.   I haven't read the story, but the story in the movie is an incredible, powerful tale of a con artist, Anna, so charismatic that her lawyer and Vivian in their own ways practically fell in some kind of love with her.

But the question arises, as it always does with docu-dramas in any case, but especially those that tell us that what we see on the screen is true except when it isn't, about how much that we see on the screen is true? My wife did a little research, for example, and found that Jessica was pregnant while she was researching and reporting Anna's story, but didn't actually give birth at the crucial time that Vivien did in the series.  Does that matter?  

Well, no and yes.  No, because, if the story on the screen is as riveting as Inventing Anna, what does it matter how much truth it conveys?  But, yes, because part of the very reason that we find this narrative so riveting is our assumption that most of it is indeed truth, or closely based upon it.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote in his Biographia Literaria back in 1817 about the "willing suspension of disbelief" that is the essential foundation for the enjoyment of poetry.  We may know that the words are in whatever degree fictitious, i.e., not completely truthful.  But our mind puts that aside and we laugh, cry, and everything in between about what we see on the page and now screen as if they were indeed 100% real.

So, by that standard, Inventing Anna gets the highest grade.  Still, one cannot suspend one's disbelief forever.  Fortunately in this case, the real world is still very much with us, and it will be fun and instructive, more than fun, to see what happens with Anna in the years ahead.

In the meantime, in addition to Garner and Chlumsky, I thought Katie Lowes as Rachel, Arian Moayed as Todd, and Anthony Edwards as Alan put in especially memorable performances in this unique memorable series.

Ozark 4.1-7: Hold On Tight

Just binged the first half of the final (fourth) season of Ozark, some seven episodes of pure adrenalin, propelled by powerful plots with memorable characters and all kinds of stunning surprises, including deaths.

[Tell you what -- for this review, no specific spoilers, you can read ahead with confidence.]

In fact, all the ingredients that made the previous three seasons so good, including the Ozark countryside, are here in abundance.  Making these seven episodes, in sum, right up there with the best of the previous seasons.

Marty, Wendy, and Ruth in all in top form.  Jonah, who has been developing into a brilliant, tough-minded teenager, has his biggest role yet.  Darlene, Wyatt, and Charlotte are in true, strong, form as well.  The complexities of Mexican drug cartels and criminals and police of various ranks in the U. S. are given satisfying and sometimes unpredictable workouts.

Ozark is often compared to Breaking Bad.  A fair enough comparison, though Breaking Bad was more of a one to two man show, and Ozark has always been more about family.  For that reason, I'd also say that The Mosquito Coast, which had one season last year on Apple TV+ ,with a second coming up, is even more like Ozark, and indeed can be clearly seen as inspired by it.

The acting of all the characters in Ozark is great, with special applause for Jason Bateman as Marty, Laura Linney as Wendy, and Julia Garner as Ruth.  My favorite new character is former cop now private detective Mel Sattem, given an unshakeable, moody, noir performance by Adam Rothenberg, which reminded me of some of those hardboiled detectives in the movies from the 1930s through the 1950s.  The seventh episode ends with a cliffhanger as sharp as you'll find, setting up the finale episodes as immediate, must-see viewing, whenever they reach the Netflix screen.

See also Ozark 3: Breakups ... Ozark 2: Against All Odds and More ... Ozark 1: Frying Pan Into the Fire

Ozark 3: Breakups

A superb third season of Ozark now on Netflix, which I'll try to review without any specific spoilers.  The theme of the ten episodes was breakup - of alliances, families, loyalties - final and temporary.

The basis for Marty and Wendy at odds  was set in the second season.  Wendy clearly has strategic smarts which not only complement Marty's, but offer alternate pathways.   Navarro, the Mexican head of the drug cartel that Marty is dealing with - laundering its money in Marty's casino - is impressed with Wendy's plans and instincts.

Ben, Wendy's brother, is the best new character introduced in the third season, and, indeed, right up there was Marty and Wendy, their kids, and Ruth.   Ben is charming, lovable, but can be violent.  Marty and Wendy are not happy when Ben shows up at their door, but he easily connects with Jonah, and, for other reasons, Ruth.   Tom Pelphrey's portrayal of Ben is definitely Emmy worthy.

Back to Jonah, the children - Jonah and Charlotte, and add in Helen's daughter Erin - were especially important this season.   Jonah is growing up, and we see the first time he's kissed by a girl, and his going after a perceived enemy with a point-blank shotgun.  Women play a prominent in the interweaving stories, including Helen, FBI agent Maya Miller, Darlene, and the ever-redoubtable Ruth, with a heart of gold not too far from her sleeve.

All of these characters are put to the test, in every episode, and the resolution of their profound conflicts are both surprising and thoroughly believable in retrospect.   In addition to Pelphrey, Julia Garner was just outstanding again as Ruth, and deserves another Emmy.   Laura Linney as Wendy outdid herself in season 3, and deserves not only the nominations she's received for previous seasons, but winning an award or two herself this season.  And, as always, you couldn't ask for a better performance than Jason Bateman as Marty.

From the beginning of the first season, enjoyment of Ozark required a big suspension of disbelief.  Season 3 requires more of that.  But the dividends are very much worth it.

See also Ozark: Frying Pan into the Fire ... Ozark 2: Against All Odds and More

Dirty John 1.1: Hunter and Hunted

Well, how can you resist watching a series starring Connie Britton and Eric Bana?  Tina and I couldn't, and we were glad.  At least so far as the debut episode, on Bravo last night.

Debra Newall (Britton) has been married four times.  She has two daughters (Ronnie, played by Juno Temple, excellent in Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams) and Terra (played by Julia Garner, who was so good in Ozark) to show for it.  That, and, against all odds, an apparently open, questing heart.

John Meehan (Banner) is some kind of anesthesiologist (maybe a doctor, maybe a nurse, maybe both? not clear).   He's incredibly attentive and apparently caring of Debra.  But there's something not quite right about him.   After a first date in which he jumps in Debra's bed - he leaves when she asks him to get up and go into another, less intimate room with her - he and Debra strike up a relationship.  But he shows up late to an important event, with she dressed to the nines, and he in scrubs.  And neither daughter can stand him.

Nonetheless, she marries him.  And that's where the first episode ends, leaving us certain that some kind of serious no good is going to come from this.  And part of that is what Debra is up to.  Is she in some sense leading John on, for some purpose as yet unrevealed to us?  She seems too smart to be taken in by whatever his game is.  And her siding with John against her daughters doesn't quite add up, either.

There's clearly something evil lurking behind this, and it will be fun to see from whom, and on whom it's inflicted.