S01.E01: Life of a VIP

[dmc]

Discuss episode 1

This is a complete Snoozefest.  I’m not sure how these people text is really interesting story and turned it into this.  Having it be from the perspective of the journalist was a mistake

[QQQQ]

Anna's voice/accent is the worst! It reminds me of an Amy Schumer sketch.

[Antek]

Anna seems so fragile and innocent. I wonder what happens next!

[Zonk]

I liked it so far. We'll see how it goes.

2 hours ago, QQQQ said:

Anna's voice/accent is the worst!

I'm not even sure what it is supposed to be. But maybe that's the point?

[MrsR]

Check out the actual Anna, terrible voice and all.

BITCH

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anna+delvey+interview+

[HolmesUltimateQu]

2 hours ago, MrsR said:

Check out the actual Anna, terrible voice and all.

BITCH

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anna+delvey+interview+

Okay I was coming here to ask what the hell is up with this accent from Julia Garner but I see, I see. In that case, Julia did a great job. Lmao I'm literally 3:07 into the first episode and came immediately here. 

I honestly thought it was a CHOICE by Julia but I see that's actually how this person sounds. So weird. 

Edited February 12, 2022 by HolmesUltimateQu

[Enero]

God this was boring. The actress playing Anna is not charismatic at all, which she should be being that she’s playing a con artist who conned some of the most affluent people in New York. And don’t even get me started on her horrible accent. 

I watched this episode, but won’t be continuing the series due to boredom. 

[Anela]

I didn't know this was a Shonda creation. I remember briefly hearing about this woman, a few years ago. I guess she got her wish (to be famous). 

[peridot]

The reporter didn't seem the like the brightest - Anna mentioned the VIP treatment multiple times and she didn't catch a clue on how to get her to talk?

Anna sounded Irish a few times, but I guess that's how the real person talked.

I'll keep watching.

[Zonk]

8 hours ago, MrsR said:

Check out the actual Anna, terrible voice and all.

BITCH

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anna+delvey+interview+

Yeah that's a mixed russian-german-accent. That is not what Julia Garner is doing. I have no idea what she is doing, actually. Sounds like half the accent she has on Ozark (is that her natural accent?), half something I can't place, with occasional sprinkles of an english accent in there, with the occasional irish.

6 hours ago, HolmesUltimateQu said:

Okay I was coming here to ask what the hell is up with this accent from Julia Garner but I see, I see. In that case, Julia did a great job.

She really, really didn't. Maybe it's because I'm german and about one third of my class were russian kids, but that is not resembling anything a russian or german accent sounds like.

[Stan39]

People seem hung up on whether the accent is authentic or not, but the point is that it doesn’t matter. The point is that it’s awful and doesn’t work as a storytelling device. We’re supposed to believe this character is other worldly charming, charismatic, and captivating but every scene she’s in she just sounds like an obnoxious brat. The over-acting by the other characters pretending to be charmed by Anna, while Anna is dull and listless makes this unbearable. I watched two episodes and I’m still not entirely sure the extent of what Anna did, what her motivation(s) were, why I should care about any of this. And that’s over two hours of storytelling with no direction!

 

Agree that Vivien seems clueless. She clearly should have picked up that Anna kept saying “VIP”. Also, she was enthralled and fascinated with this story enough to fight for it but it didn’t dawn on her that Anna would be on Instagram? And the writing is so bad I can’t tell if Vivien likes Anna, believes her, is using her for the story, is charmed by her. It’s ok if the character changes her feelings over the course of the story but she just seems aimless. She doesn’t even seem to have an angle for this story other than she’s determined to write it. 

[Zonk]

3 hours ago, Stan39 said:

People seem hung up on whether the accent is authentic or not, but the point is that it doesn’t matter. The point is that it’s awful and doesn’t work as a storytelling device. We’re supposed to believe this character is other worldly charming, charismatic, and captivating but every scene she’s in she just sounds like an obnoxious brat. The over-acting by the other characters pretending to be charmed by Anna, while Anna is dull and listless makes this unbearable. I watched two episodes and I’m still not entirely sure the extent of what Anna did, what her motivation(s) were, why I should care about any of this. And that’s over two hours of storytelling with no direction!

But this story is a completely true, except for the parts that are totally made up. That is one of the completely true parts. When you look at interviews with the real one, she really is like that. That might have even lend her authenticity. People thought "she must be rich, otherwise she couldn't get away with being so rude and annoying".

[Whimsy]

5 hours ago, Zonk said:

But this story is a completely true, except for the parts that are totally made up. That is one of the completely true parts. When you look at interviews with the real one, she really is like that. That might have even lend her authenticity. People thought "she must be rich, otherwise she couldn't get away with being so rude and annoying".

I agree. I don’t think people were falling all over her because she was “charming” but because she had the shitty attitude only the Uber rich have so they believed she was Uber rich. 

[Stan39]

6 hours ago, Zonk said:

But this story is a completely true, except for the parts that are totally made up. That is one of the completely true parts. When you look at interviews with the real one, she really is like that. That might have even lend her authenticity. People thought "she must be rich, otherwise she couldn't get away with being so rude and annoying".

You’re missing my point. This is historical fiction. The TV audience is supposed to believe in her, not the other characters in the show. That’s where the fiction part and the actor is supposed to take liberties to make the story believable. Instead, she’s so cloying and grating that the viewer can’t buy any of the other stuff on the show. 

[Zonk]

59 minutes ago, Stan39 said:

You’re missing my point. This is historical fiction. The TV audience is supposed to believe in her, not the other characters in the show. That’s where the fiction part and the actor is supposed to take liberties to make the story believable. Instead, she’s so cloying and grating that the viewer can’t buy any of the other stuff on the show. 

I blieve in her. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Part of me believing in her is that she is cloying and grating.

[Whimsy]

1 hour ago, Stan39 said:

You’re missing my point. This is historical fiction. The TV audience is supposed to believe in her, not the other characters in the show. That’s where the fiction part and the actor is supposed to take liberties to make the story believable. Instead, she’s so cloying and grating that the viewer can’t buy any of the other stuff on the show. 

I disagree. The fact that this show is allowing her to be an entitled, annoying, basically charmless person shows how even more incredible it was that she was able to scam so many people. 

[Zonk]

2 minutes ago, Whimsy said:

I disagree. The fact that this show is allowing her to be an entitled, annoying, basically charmless person shows how even more incredible it was that she was able to scam so many people. 

And what these high society people really value (money) and what behaviour they will accept (basically anything, as long as you have enough money). That message would have been lost if they had changed her character for the show to be sweet and charming.

[Melina22]

1 hour ago, Whimsy said:

The fact that this show is allowing her to be an entitled, annoying, basically charmless person shows how even more incredible it was that she was able to scam so many people. 

I agree, but I think it was also that she was mysterious and weird in her affect and behaviour. I can see how this could fascinate bored rich people. Also, apparently she could be fun to be around.

Finally, her perceived billionaire status threw a huge halo over everything. It made blunt and strange seem mysterious and exciting. She was able to fool extremely suspicious people from all walks of life, so she was certainly more than just rude and annoying. 

For me, the psychology around how she succeeded so well is just as fascinating to me as getting a gorgeous glimpse into the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. It's a tie. 😁

 

[MerBearStare]

1 hour ago, Whimsy said:

I disagree. The fact that this show is allowing her to be an entitled, annoying, basically charmless person shows how even more incredible it was that she was able to scam so many people. 

I read the NY Magazine article this show is based on before starting to watch it and this section near the end stuck out to me:

"During the course of my reporting, people kept asking: Why this girl? She wasn’t superhot, they pointed out, or super-charming; she wasn’t even very nice. How did she manage to convince an enormous amount of cool, successful people that she was something she clearly was not?"

I don't think those questions have been answered four years later.

[Angeleyes]

I think Anna was talented in the art of “neging” someone. She makes people feel like she’s the important one in every situation and that reverse psychological makes people want her attention. 

[fountain]

On 2/11/2022 at 4:26 PM, MrsR said:

Check out the actual Anna, terrible voice and all.

BITCH

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anna+delvey+interview+

The actress did a great job in mimicking the speech and affect of the real Anna! Such an annoying voice. The actress' accent may be off but the fry and dry affect seem similar enough.

The fact is that some people are just drawn to bitchy women. Don't we all know at least one poorly behaved snotty ass woman who gets every one's attention all the time?

I thought the reporter didn't jump on the VIP thing because she was trying to hold the cards and not be manipulated into giving in to Anna. That was my take.

Edited February 13, 2022 by fountain

[gesundheit]

3 hours ago, fountain said:

I thought the reporter didn't jump on the VIP thing because she was trying to hold the cards and not be manipulated into giving in to Anna. That was my take.

I agree. I think the go-ahead she got from the friend that it's not necessary to be coy about it was what let the reporter know this wasn't a dance -- she just needed to say it outright and satisfaction would be immediate. Before that she perhaps got the sense that it was just a tactic on Anna's part to keep upping the ante because she wanted to be courted. But really she didn't, she was going to say yes right away with only that one selling point.

[SoTheresThat]

After watching the 60 Minutes video, I don't think the actress sounded anything like the real Anna at all. She was sometimes frustratingly hard to understand, especially if she wasn't facing the camera so you could read her lips.  At least I had a hard time.  There was a phone call scene where she wasn't on screen that I couldn't understand at all.  She sounded more like Ruth from Ozark than she did the real Anna. 

Edited February 14, 2022 by SoTheresThat

[Madding crowd]

I really hate the journalist character. As a journalist myself, I can say we are not all self centered blow hards who would scream at an ultrasound nor expect my coworkers to spend their time making me feel important. Perhaps Vivian shouldn’t be having a baby if it makes her so angry.

[SlovakPrincess]

Gah.  Some of the dialogue is just so cringe-inducingly bad.  

Vivian just seems deranged.  Hoping someone won't take a plea deal (that they should probably take for their own good) so she can get her big story?  Manipulating someone she knows is probably mentally unwell to not take the deal?  Screaming swears at the ultrasound of your baby because "oh no, baby's real now, I've run out of time to save my career!"?  Actually putting her crazy conspiracy collage on the wall?     I mean ... we're not supposed to like this character, are we?  

In these kind of movies / shows, I'm usually cheering on the scrappy underdog and mad at the love interest who doesn't understand their commitment to their work -- but here, I'm feeling really bad for the husband.  Vivian is deeply unpleasant, and I'm starting to think whatever issue ruined her career probably arose out of the same kind of unethical behavior she's displaying with Anna.

In real life interviews, yes, Anna Delvey seems charmless and off-putting and I think Julia Garner is probably doing an ok job portraying that.  But does such a person make for a good mini-series?   Are they even going to try and explain how someone so annoying and not particularly interesting was able to con so many people?  So far, it seems the answer is no.   

[Artsda]

You could tell this is Shonda Rhimes from the casting alone, she likes the same people in every show.

Am I supposed to prefer the criminal over the reporter? I feel sorry for that husband & baby, seems like she doesn't care to want her at all. 

[chediavolo]

On 2/14/2022 at 2:24 PM, Madding crowd said:

I really hate the journalist character. As a journalist myself, I can say we are not all self centered blow hards who would scream at an ultrasound nor expect my coworkers to spend their time making me feel important. Perhaps Vivian shouldn’t be having a baby if it makes her so angry.

I don’t know why someone who loves  her job & is so dedicated would want a baby at this point in her life. I’m biased though. Kids are not all they are cracked up to be. Has any woman ever really been had a successful non 9-5 career & a successful motherhood at the same time? 

[Armchair Critic]

When it started with Anna talking snooty... I thought I am not going to watch this beyotch. But it got more interesting for me with the reporter and Anna's lawyer. 10 episodes seems like too much though.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Armchair Critic

[Vivigirl10]

I chuckled at the one male friend saying that Anna having a "peasant face" made it more believable that she was rich.  "Peasant face"!

I want to see every inch of her lawyer's brownstone.  I also want to wear his wife's pink tulle gown. 

Anna really seems to hate fat people.

The fact that these are my takeaways from the first episode does not bode well for the series.

 

[Zima]

 

This didn't pull me in, which sucks, because I really like the two main actresses. Hopefully, it will get better. 

On 2/21/2022 at 5:45 AM, chediavolo said:

I don’t know why someone who loves  her job & is so dedicated would want a baby at this point in her life. I’m biased though. Kids are not all they are cracked up to be. Has any woman ever really been had a successful non 9-5 career & a successful motherhood at the same time? 

Sadly, some people think that having kids is a milestone they have to fulfill due to societal and/or familial obligations.

[Quilt Fairy]

15 hours ago, Zima said:

 

This didn't pull me in, which sucks, because I really like the two main actresses. Hopefully, it will get better. 

Sadly, some people think that having kids is a milestone they have to fulfill due to societal and/or familial obligations.

And biological clock.

[dovegrey]

I want to like this show, but I'm stuck on the actress who plays Vivian/the journalist reminding me of a Kate McKinnon SNL character, and not in a good way. The actress is super hammy.

[Zima]

On 3/2/2022 at 5:31 PM, Quilt Fairy said:

And biological clock.

Pretty sure that's a myth. I'm 42, and have never felt any kind of "biological clock" urges. I usually tell people that I took the batteries out of my biological clock and put them in my vibrator.  😁

[LuvMyShows]

 

On 2/11/2022 at 5:26 PM, MrsR said:

Check out the actual Anna, terrible voice and all.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anna+delvey+interview+

I checked it out and have to agree with those who are mystified by the unidentifiable awfulness of the actress's accent.  The real Anna doesn't have a stand-out accent...she just sounded like someone who on most words pronounced them slightly differently than most Americans do, but not to the point of ridiculous distraction, like the actress.  Also, the real Anna projects a certain confidence and composure, but the movie Anna is just a bizarre caricature compilation of a variety of personality types/stereotypes.  

In spite of that, I'm enjoying it, and actually like having the journalist's perspective, because I think I would lose my mind if we had to focus on Anna all the time....[paging Jan Brady] Anna, Anna, Anna! 

On 2/23/2022 at 10:13 AM, Kiki620 said:

I chuckled at the one male friend saying that Anna having a "peasant face" made it more believable that she was rich.  "Peasant face"!

I didn't understand why the guy in the movie said it, since the movie Anna doesn't have a peasant face at all, but I actually understood what he meant when I saw the real Anna.

[dovegrey]

33 minutes ago, LuvMyShows said:

I checked it out and have to agree with those who are mystified by the unidentifiable awfulness of the actress's accent.  The real Anna doesn't have a stand-out accent...she just sounded like someone who on most words pronounced them slightly differently than most Americans do, but not to the point of ridiculous distraction, like the actress. 

This one https://youtu.be/ld3D1tnHvSU tends to sound similar to Show Anna, at least to my ears. I almost didn’t watch the show because of her weird accent in the Netflix preview clip, until I heard the real Anna and figured out the actress had to develop a Russian-German accent that tried to downplay the Russian, and got pretty close, IMO. I also imagine spending four years immersed in the US (well, a prison) would affect Real Anna’s accent in the post-release interviews. 

The show overall is all over the place and never seems to know if Anna is the antagonist or the protagonist or an anti-hero or what. I ended up enjoying Anna’s actress quite a bit, given what it is. 

 

[methodwriter85]

On 3/2/2022 at 8:52 PM, dovegrey said:

I want to like this show, but I'm stuck on the actress who plays Vivian/the journalist reminding me of a Kate McKinnon SNL character, and not in a good way. The actress is super hammy.

Fun Millennial nostalgia fact: That's Vada from My Girl all growed up. She largely disappeared from acting to do high school and college and was pursuing a career as an food critic before going back into acting in her mid-20's. She's had pretty steady acting work since then, most notably her work in HBO's Veep.

Edited March 7, 2022 by methodwriter85

[kwnyc]

I find I actually have something to add to the true/made up list:

The Rikers Island bus (Q100) stops across the street from my house, and the people in our residential corridor (21st St.) love it, because it essentially functions as an express bus. It starts at Queens Plaza (which is not at all hard to get to from Manhattan), and makes about 3 or 4 stops in Astoria before going over the bridge to Riker's.

It's not in some desolate field, and while prisoners' families and friends ride to and from the jail, people in the neighborhood like that it connects with several subway lines and stops at a shopping center. 

[aradia22]

Quote

This is a complete Snoozefest.  I’m not sure how these people text is really interesting story and turned it into this. 

Honestly, I think the biggest problem with the show is the writers had something they wanted to say, and that just doesn't fit with the actual Anna or the facts of the case. They're going so hard on the girlbossing, they're forgetting she was a scammer. I don't need her to be a master manipulator. It's okay if the rich people end up looking dumb, or at least easily fooled. 

Quote

But this story is a completely true, except for the parts that are totally made up. That is one of the completely true parts. When you look at interviews with the real one, she really is like that. That might have even lend her authenticity. People thought "she must be rich, otherwise she couldn't get away with being so rude and annoying".

I would prefer if the show leaned into that instead of pretending she was a brilliant grifter who knew how to manipulate people. They really seem to want to do a kind of a serial killer thing with all the jail interviews. Let this show be shallow. I came here to look at expensive things, see rich people be fooled, and see Anna stay one step ahead of detection until she finally makes too many mistakes. 

Quote

Yeah that's a mixed russian-german-accent. That is not what Julia Garner is doing. I have no idea what she is doing, actually. Sounds like half the accent she has on Ozark (is that her natural accent?), half something I can't place, with occasional sprinkles of an english accent in there, with the occasional irish.

She sounds like Tommy Wiseau at her worst but I think the accent softens in other episodes. It seems like she was figuring it out as she went along.

Quote

I really hate the journalist character. As a journalist myself, I can say we are not all self centered blow hards who would scream at an ultrasound nor expect my coworkers to spend their time making me feel important. Perhaps Vivian shouldn’t be having a baby if it makes her so angry.

It's weird; I like Anna Chlumsky even though the writing for Vivian is so bad and cliched. I like her backup team of older reporters but it feels like the writers are giving them a lot of the vulgar language that they must think is hilarious. Like, you don't have to curse to prove you're a jaded adult. 

Quote

I chuckled at the one male friend saying that Anna having a "peasant face" made it more believable that she was rich.  "Peasant face"!

I want to see every inch of her lawyer's brownstone.  I also want to wear his wife's pink tulle gown. 

I wish they'd leaned into how baffling it was that Anna fooled people and how odd people found her more than trying to make her charismatic (especially because that didn't seem like part of her con). She was a weirdo who pretended to be rich, not someone who could read people and pretend kindness. Also, yes, loving the locations though the lighting on this show sucks.