Parents' Guide to Inventing Anna

The true story it's based on is fascinatingly bizarre, and so is this series stocked with sublime actors -- but using the journalist who broke Sorokin's tale as an entry point was a tactical error. It's true that the 2018 New York Magazine article "Maybe She Had So Much Money She Just Lost Track of It" was the story that made the faux heiress instantly notorious, and it's not a terrible framing device. Start with a mystery and then slowly unspool it: That's classic TV storytelling. The problem is that there's so much of the journalist's story, and that her arc is so much less compelling than that of a fake socialite who managed to worm her way into some very high circles. That, and Anna Chlumsky bites off her role with entirely too much teeth, grimacing distractedly in scenes that call for something, well, less.

The story starts to pick up steam once we meet Neff, the concierge at the tony NYC hotel where Sorokin lived for months. As Sorokin's only actual friend, she has insight into both what Anna did and why she did it, and as we begin to chart her misadventures through flashbacks, the less interesting journalist story fades into the background more pleasantly. Self-assured and quick, Alexis Floyd gives a smart, arresting performance as Neff, just one in a show simply filled with fine turns, from Julia Garner's pitch-perfect take on Sorokin's unusual accent and sly way of speaking, to Laverne Cox's vibrant depiction of Sorokin's personal trainer. It's enough to carry you through the scenes that are on the tedious side, knowing you'll get to see Garner or Floyd momentarily in this imperfect but undeniably juicy true tale.