虚构安娜

这是第一部让我看完结局非常无语让我觉得纯纯浪费时间的美剧 开头几集其实拍的还不错 展现了安娜的野心和她的社交魅力 但是最后两集可以说是败笔中的败笔 第一点我实在不明白为什么女记者和律师以及nef这些人在明白安娜完全就是在骗人之后居然变本加厉的支持她 甚至要帮她开脱罪名 拜托 即使是她聪明 她就是盗刷了别人的信用卡甚至害的朋友因此背债 而她本人就是一个彻头彻尾活在自己幻想里的精神病骗子 而且看到最后我完全不觉得安娜有多大的魅力让大家这么支持她 她就是一个装阔但是无时不刻信用卡都刷不出一分钱的假名媛 而且一旦出了点事情就开始破口大骂情绪崩溃的精神病 老实说看到最后我觉得她很烦人 特别是她非得要在法庭上穿的跟女明星一样然后不停发脾气责怪律师的那一段 给我看的火冒三丈 但是莫名其妙女记者和律师即使要抛弃自己的家庭也要去支持她努力帮她开脱罪名 简直就是把观众的三观按在地板上摩擦 这是在公开支持犯罪吗？

老实说 如果它多花一些part去好好展现安娜是如何利用自己的社交魅力打动那么多富豪圈里的人 那这部剧其实还是有看点的 但很可惜它展现的一直是安娜不停的刷不出钱而出糗 只会一点一点把安娜在观众心目中的形象不断拉低 原本以为是一个社交名媛玩转名利场 没想到是给我们看一个拙劣的精神病骗子 全剧被她耍过的人都跟弱智一样 不检查自己的信用卡账单 收不到钱照样给她办事 通过几个电话就能肯定她的信托基金 看到她每次都刷不出卡还能坚信她是一个富婆 只是偶尔爸妈的钱没跟上。。。

看到我真觉得我的智商被侮辱了 还有他们最后打击瑞秋的那一段更是让我三观崩塌 瑞秋相信她把自己的银行卡甚至连公司的卡都抵押给酒店 还被她刷了个精光 害的瑞秋失去自己的工作债台高筑 而剧里面竟然把她描述成一个假惺惺的骗子 我的天被刷了六万美金的是瑞秋不是你们这些旁观者。。

人家把自己的受骗经历卖给出版社好像是什么大罪一样 一开始安娜请她吃请她穿不也是安娜自愿的？

剧里面把所谓的朋友定义成即使被盗刷了钱也要忍气吞声支持她真是给我看笑了 然后安娜到最后谎言全被拆穿之后居然还是不知悔改 我只能说她病的太重了 已经完全深陷在自己的幻想里 以及剧里面似乎想要给她一些什么渴望亲情的人设 但是实际上我支持她的父母 因为她就是一个眼高手低 不懂的什么是法律边界 不懂的什么是别人财产的疯狂骗子 她活在自己想象里 这样的人谁能叫的醒她？

剧里面应该是想展现她的口才和说服别人的能力 但是每次有关这部分的剧情我只看到了一个刷不出钱的骗子在非常局促不安竭斯底里的逃避 转移话题 试图画一些大饼来让别人认同那些狗屁设想理念 而她这样苍白无力的狡辩被剧里面大多数人接受了才是最令人无语的一点 大家都像没有带上脑子一样跟她相处 并且在发现自己上当受骗后的第一反应竟然是觉得自己丢人疯狂给自己找面子 我只能说现实里的富豪即使表面上装作不在意但是背地里怎么可能放过你？

老实说 这部剧的原型故事其实非常有看头 原型人物确实有很强的能力手段 她的故事是真的很精彩很不可思议但是这部剧里完全把安娜这个人物形象给毁了 编剧将一个精明 善于利用他人信任 有着庞大野心并也为此付出努力 游刃有余周旋在富豪圈里的安娜摧毁成了一个耍小聪明 有点脑子但不多 总能时时刻刻把事情搞砸出糗 然后再苍白无力的狡辩 情绪极度不稳定 看起来好像很强大其实什么都不做好 一边大谈特谈自己要独立 一边又拿着所谓的信托基金这种空头支票到处骗人的傻缺心机女形象 非常失败的人物塑造 加上演员本身也没有展现出安娜的魅力其次整部剧女记者的这个视角非常冗长 剧名叫虚构安娜 但我看完觉得不如叫薇薇安的职场复仇计划 铺垫了不少薇薇安职业上的挫折 提到了好几次她之前文章里的失误 但最后居然就是一笔带过 那为什么要提这件事情 展现女记者的懦弱？

不敢出来道明真相？

不能理解的一些剧情出现了 而且作为一个女记者最后去支持一个诈骗犯 我觉得真的很离谱还有就是最后两集提到了安娜的家人 一开始以为有什么惊人转折 毕竟是电视剧 还真以为编剧把她爸爸改编成一个起码能扑腾点水花 结果整了那么多悬念 最后人家就是个普通人并且跟安娜断绝关系 看完也不知道该说他符合现实呢还是为了凑时长硬编呢 这个所谓的家人完全没有出现的必要 到律师请他来出庭一次都不肯 这个人物角色出现的意义我只能看出来一点：政治正确 俄罗斯人 外国人受到德国人排挤 纯纯的政治正确工具 就跟那个nef不停的强调自己是个黑人一样全剧结尾非常仓促败笔 安娜直到最后都没有从自己的幻想里走出来 记者和律师被她PUA成了她的脑残粉 无视法律 真正的受害人成为了众矢之的 只有她被判的刑符合常理从头到尾大谈特谈所谓的美国梦 所谓的为了自己的梦想努力 以及试图展现了一个年轻女孩的梦想和她的独特魅力 实际上就是给我们展现了一个拙劣的骗子和她脑残的受害人 主角有一种没见过钱所以有钱的时候一定要大手大脚疯狂挥霍 等到没钱了又开始疯狂抓瞎的脑瘫感 说实话看到豆瓣评分还能上7分是有被震惊到的 我只能说可能很多人没有看完或者看完了也是稀里糊涂 以为自己看了部跨越阶级的大爽剧 其实被编剧霸凌了智商和三观 还有被演员们夸张的表演尴尬到的眼睛 我真的被整部剧里的演员演技给无语到了 不是挤眉瞪眼表情浮夸油腻 就是抓狂大叫发癫 最好的就是保持面瘫 只能说整部剧的水平非常平均 就是烂到家了

说在前面：我逛了一下IMDB，看到一篇影评，又刷新了我对于剧里剧外Anna的认知，特此搬运翻译一下这篇影评，如有侵权，请及时告知。

以下是正文（标题如上）：Netflix支付给Anna Sorokin，本剧的核心诈骗犯32万美元用于购买其故事的版权。

Sorokin用这笔钱偿还了她从银行盗窃的资金，以及她欠纽约州的一些罚款。

接着，她参加了大大小小的脱口秀或是其他综艺以继续出名。

在我撰写这篇影评的时候，她正在等待被遣返回德国，但罹患新冠阻碍了这一进程。

美国海关认为她是故意患病以呆在美国更久，毕竟，Anna本就是个骗子。

因此，为了让我们这些普罗大众明白反社会人格和好莱坞的运作模式，（被诈骗的）银行又重新通过Anna的故事版权获得了补偿，然而，在Anna诈骗过程中用的那些普通人的信用卡和银行账户仍然没有得到补偿。

尽管纽约州有山姆之子法律条文（译者注：禁止以盈利为目的出版罪犯的犯罪回忆录）的存在，通过Shonda Rimes撰写的这个剧本，Anna仍然变成了一个“非主流主角”并通过她的罪行获利。

当我们看这部剧的时候，我们正在帮助一个反社会者牟利。

诈骗是骗子的本质。

Julia Garner对Anna的诠释很棒，但她的口音让我想砸了我的电视。

Shonda呈现给了我们一个迷人的剧本。

但这部剧的意义究竟是什么，只是为了拍某种OJ（译者注：OJ Simpson案是美国历史上最轰动的案子，有相关纪录片及改编美剧）“如果我做了”视角的犯罪吗？

我不喜欢拔高骗子地位的想法，尤其是我不喜欢因为她只诈骗富人所以她的诈骗行为没有问题的想法。

诈骗就是诈骗。

她不是罗宾汉。

她只是个小偷。

It started with money,as it so often does in New York.这个故事始于金钱，就像你在纽约经常看到的那样。

这是Jessica Pressler文章的第一句话。

电视剧《虚构安娜》以Jessica Pressler 发表在 New York Magazine 上这篇文章《How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People》为基础，讲述了一个卡车司机的女儿通过打造人设融入纽约社交圈的故事。

主创团队包括知名制作人 Shonda Rhimes（《实习医生格蕾》） ，导演大卫·弗兰科尔（《穿普拉达的女王》）、汤姆维里卡Tom Verica（《十二宫》），主演朱莉娅·加纳（Julia Garner）、安娜·克拉姆斯基（Anna Chlumsky）等。

剧集上映后，针对虚构安娜的评价多以PUA、诈骗、假名媛为关键词，也有不少观众将这部网飞新剧与同期上映的纪录电影Tinder诈骗王、小李子主演的经典犯罪电影《猫鼠游戏》做比较，然而虚构安娜展现出来故事内核并不完全属于犯罪题材，像剧中记者所说的，这是一个关于新时期美国梦的故事。

很可惜的是，剧集既想最大程度利用“女诈骗犯”这一噱头，又想尽可能平权、阶级固化等时代热点，最终讲了一个四不像的故事，塑造了一个失败女性反面角色。

01虚构安娜的原型与剧集在60 minutes的采访中，主持人问Anna未来还会留在纽约吗，安娜毫不犹豫地回答：

采访中不想离开名利场的安娜，是网飞新剧《虚构安娜》主角的原型。

2021年获得假释后，她把自己的故事以32万美元卖给网飞，在出狱后得以维系不错的名媛生活。

以记者薇薇安的调查为线索，安娜德尔维与安娜索罗金的故事在观众面前徐徐展开。

作为一个因盗窃入狱的诈骗犯，《虚构安娜》的故事其实并不复杂。

她的骗术仅限于伪造名媛身份，真正骗到手的也只有短暂的奢华生活与10万美元贷款。

想把这样一个假名媛行骗的故事讲得有深度，就势必要挖掘安娜的犯罪动机，在犯罪者这一角色的塑造上下功夫。

显然，网飞没有做到。

02真正的罪犯永远不会假装自己在行骗低劣的行骗手法被誉为编剧圣经的《故事》中，罗伯特·麦基这样阐释反面人物塑造原理：主人公及其故事的智慧魅力和情感魄力，必须与对抗力量相适应。

说得直白一些，出彩的反面人物可以有缺点，但决不能是力量远不如对手的傻白甜。

从第一集开始，网飞就释放出了人们对安娜截然不同的两种认知：

一个愚蠢的社交名媛

一个年仅26岁就骗倒了大银行金融顾问、对冲基金、律师事务所、房地产开发商、慈善家、画廊、艺术品经销商、时装周以及纽约一大半社会人士的女孩随着记者调查的深入，安娜这一角色逐渐显出全貌。

为了让这个罪犯明星得到更多观众的关注，网飞花了大量镜头去展示安娜几乎是与生俱来的“名媛气质”、金融才能、艺术天分，也不遗余力地渲染她为创建ADF四处奔走的“辛苦付出”；另一方面，安娜在与人对峙的过程中多次暴露幼稚与自卑。

在酒店，安娜因无法支付房费而被酒店赶到大堂，面对质疑，安娜用家庭创伤忽悠了迷恋她的瓦尔，用理想、事业忽悠了创一代男友蔡斯。

在剧中人物眼里，这当然是安娜应变能力的体现，但站在上帝视角的观众不难察觉安娜的惊慌。

在后续的剧情中，面对来自银行、酒店等越来越多的质疑，无论安娜的表现是歇斯底里还是倨傲冷漠，她的借口始终只有两个：“银行会贷款给我的”，以及“我要做一项伟大而神秘的事业”。

这套借口对在真权贵与名媛圈之间的高管、话事人或许有效，但它无法成为真正的上流社会的敲门砖。

她爱上的科技公司创一代是个跟她一样的骗子，搭上的人脉有时尚人士、基金会会长、热爱开派对的阔太、想播撒父爱的高管……而当内芙质疑安娜身份去找酒店老板的儿子们询问时，他们一致回答“她从未来过我们家”——安娜始终没有如她所设想的那样突破名媛圈，打入上流社会。

这套低劣的骗术对上行不通，对下也是一样。

伟大的事业和神秘的家庭背景忽悠住了一众名媛和时尚人士，却没能哄住真正要上班还贷的瑞秋。

不管安娜有多么强大的身份背景，瑞秋在眼前利益受损时，几经纠结还是选择了撕破脸皮，与警察合作设计抓捕安娜。

故事到这里本该以“假名媛锒铛入狱”告终，但或许是网飞艺高人胆大，剧集又释放出下一个疑问：如果安娜的身份是真的呢？

支撑这一疑点的当然不只是安娜带着浓重口音的英语，更有她面对宣判时也一如既往的自信。

剧中，安娜对薇薇安说：你还是对我一无所知。

这句话驱使薇薇安远赴德国，深访安娜的家人与成长环境，从一个俄罗斯女孩的童年入手，找出她犯罪的真实原因。

柏林之旅结束，安娜这一角色彻底定性：在移民区长大的一个立志进入上流社会的渴爱小女孩。

在剧集中，尽管安娜德尔维始终声称自己是一位本可以作出伟大事业的商场精英，坚持认为性别带来的不公待遇是她受到的最大阻碍，但她以建立安娜德尔维基金会为目标的行骗历程，缺乏真正的布局规划，更像是走一步看一步混吃混喝的二流子，其隐藏在名媛外壳、性别话题下那幼稚的骗局设计、低劣的诈骗手段才是失败的真正原因。

无论耍多少花活去包装安娜，诈骗始终是整个故事的地基，一个合格的诈骗犯，他所有的表现都应该是为骗局服务的，而不是假装自己在行骗。

或许是本末倒置，或许是用力过猛，网飞既把安娜塑造成一个自信强大的艺术天才，又让她在多次与人对峙的过程中显露幼稚与自卑，既想塑造一个新时代独立女性诈骗王，又想深刻揭露她行骗背后脆弱、敏感的内心世界。

这种自我撕扯，导致剧集最终将一个本可以成为金融诈骗女魔头的女性反面角色彻底塑造成一个耽于情绪犯罪的可怜女孩，正如千百年来人们对于女性犯罪者的惯有印象那样。

03幻想症少女和她的“美国梦”犯罪动机之一美国梦是这样一种社会秩序，在这种秩序下，男人和女人不论他们出身如何，社会地位如何，都能最大程度地实现自己的潜能并为他人所认可和接受。

1931年，詹姆斯·亚当斯这样定义“美国梦”一词。

与《Tinder诈骗王》《猫鼠游戏》不同，《虚构安娜》试图揭露新时代下的美国梦的破灭：当人口红利消失，不可突破的阶级壁垒、以貌取人的晋级规则，都加剧了不同阶层间资源的不平等。

这不免让人联想到那个做假名媛行为艺术的学生，以及在中式omakase评论区破防的食客。

他们都将上层阶级想象为一群看重包装远胜价值的酒囊饭袋，认为像剧中的安娜一样，穿有品位的衣服，吃精致的食物，玩时尚圈最“性感”的概念，就可以突破阶级壁垒，融入上流社会。

但在北上广深稍微打过几年工的人都清楚，如果按鱼形来勾画社会结构，鱼头那一小撮掌握着世界上大多数资源的人才是真正的上层阶级，是掌权者和决策者，安娜之流所瞄准的，则是他们和工薪阶层之间的“中间商”。

这群中间商徘徊在上流社会边缘，把捡来的一两句话包装成商业风口，编造新概念，售卖给下游的工薪阶层，也就是执行者，进而层层推动庞大的社会机器运转盈利。

他们赚的是售卖风口、投机倒把的钱，一旦捡不到东西可卖，就会跟剧中的蔡斯一样，凭空捏造下一个“性感”的概念，赚快钱。

中间商们靠什么合作结盟呢？

利益。

无论是物质利益还是情绪价值，只要有利可得，这群人就像闻味儿出动的苍蝇一哄而上。

正是因为这一点，安娜作为由nora引进的新面孔，凭借编造出来的家世背景、以假乱真的艺术品位，在他们中游刃有余，利用真名媛为自己背书，以巨额信托基金作饵，引人上钩。

很多人认为银行高管的愚蠢不合理，猜测或许安娜为他提供了某些不可告人的服务以换取帮助，但我更愿意认为，这位高管瞄准了安娜在未来可以给自己带来的巨大价值，急于促成这笔买卖，他没有时间去核实身份，因为大鱼不可错过。

故事按这么个讲法，安娜已然不是头脑发达精于谋划的诈骗犯，而是一个见风使舵的投机者。

她被包装出来的那些商业能力俗称“看人下菜碟”，也叫“见人说人话，见鬼说鬼话”。

在北上广深的媒体、艺术行业，你每年都能见到大把大把这样的人才。

他们自信、精明，逻辑能力、学习能力、社交能力都远强于你我，更善于窥探他人的内心，懂得如何有针对性地出招以获利。

然而就像剧集里酒店老板的儿子们一样，真正在鱼头的人只需一两句话就可以戳破安娜之流的谎言，因为上流社会的圈子只有鱼头那么大，谁在内谁在外一目了然。

故弄玄虚、虚张声势，网飞制作剧集的手法与剧中安娜行骗的手法出奇地一致。

对所谓的新时期“美国梦”的追问，最终流于表面，止步于对安娜劣质诈骗手法的包装，也因此让这个“幻想症”少女的犯罪动机显得格外可笑。

04又或者，网飞也许本来就只想塑造一个拜金女呢？

犯罪动机之二行骗，势必出于某种目的。

即便是有“诈骗癖”，也是把这一情感满足当作诈骗的目的来推动骗局执行。

抛开“美国梦”这一冠冕堂皇的借口，安娜的犯罪动机是什么呢？

网飞借助剧情和人物，给出了以下两种解释：1、安娜野心勃勃，想通过诈骗建立商业帝国。

2、安娜只是一个渴望得到关注和爱的小女孩。

这两种解释，看似自相矛盾，却完美契合了《虚构安娜》高开低走的剧情发展。

剧集从首集起就摆足了架势，借角色之口，反复强调安娜的商业理想、事业追求。

但她为基金会四处奔走，却也只是“奔走”而已，她的第一份商业计划书因内容空洞被驳回，第二份计划书因为有高管的主管偏爱而勉强过关，这些都表明她离自己的心目中的商业女强人相差甚远。

安娜空有野心，却没有能撑得起野心的经商能力，口口声声说自己不是拜金女，却是实实在在沉迷于奢靡生活带来的物欲满足。

在融资创业路上一次次审核失败后，她暴露了名媛外壳下的草包内核。

人是复杂的，人的欲望也是复杂的。

一个诈骗犯当然可以是出于某种心理/精神问题接连行骗，也可以想要为世界做好事，做这些都说得通。

但在塑造人物时，我们要做的不仅仅是揭示复杂，至少还要让人性的复杂符合角色，不是每一次行骗都能用“临时起意”来解释，也不是所有骗局都可以用一个“她沉溺于自己创造的角色”就草草收尾的。

最起码，安娜德尔维还远不足以让观众沉溺其中。

又或者，网飞也许本来就没想打造女诈骗犯，只想塑造一个拜金女呢？

05女性犯罪者角色的又一次失败尝试传统犯罪学中，对于女性犯罪问题并没有过多论述。

20世纪后，Ｗ·Ｉ·托马斯认为，女性犯罪是因为女性爱和性需要未及时得到满足，相应地，女性犯罪多为性犯罪。

从被酒店驱逐到大厅开始，女记者就时不时向观众透露安娜的家庭状况。

她的父母到底是谁？

她父亲是否有俄国黑道背景？

如果她的故事是真的呢？

这一连串的疑问吊着观众看完了1-8集，在安娜入狱这一情节点，她的身份之谜被渲染到极致，可随之而来的解谜却完全配不上前面的悬念。

普通的移民家庭，赚钱养家的父亲，和不知道如何跟女儿沟通的母亲，这跟安娜所说的两个版本*都不一致（黑道家族等），也实在是一个不够出彩的过于老套的“原生家庭”借口。

当记者询问安娜时，她的母亲用这样一段话来回答：

“孩子只是由父母赋予了生命而非人格”“孩子不是我们塑造的”“把这孩子的父母想象成怪物更容易理解是吧”翻译过来就是两点：1、安娜长成这样跟我们没关系。

2、人们不愿意相信孩子本来就是歪脖子树，更愿意相信上梁不正下梁歪。

安娜母亲的这番话，与其用来交代安娜的犯罪动机，不如用来形容网飞这部剧的人物塑造。

人们更愿意相信女性犯罪者是因为情感上受到伤害才走上犯罪道路，把一个醉心于财富、地位的女诈骗犯想象成一个渴求得到关注的名媛更容易是吧？

一个受自我利益驱动的女罪犯，和一个为了得到爱和关注、以情绪/情感驱动的女罪犯，影视工厂网飞选择了后者。

这一幕更体现出现实中女性的无力。

我们透过安娜这一失败的女性犯罪者角色看到了社会中长久以来一直存在的观点：一方面，我们似乎始终不认为女性在事业层面也是有野心的，不愿相信有利益驱动型的女性存在；另一方面，我们在某种程度上坚定地认为女性犯罪者无论犯罪手法如何，犯罪动机一定是情绪化的，而不是利己的、理智的、机敏的。

女性力量，或者说平权，在网飞手中只是一个口号，一个流量入口。

比起安娜，线索人物薇薇安、私人教练玛茜都要更有力量。

当越来越多的女性走上工作岗位，意识到自己并未与男性同工同酬同待遇，当越来越多的人发现女性正在通过教育、工作获取尊严与更好的生活，当“女性特质”逐渐被愈加丰富多元的性格、选择冲淡，David Frankel擅长的“小妞电影”就不再能引起人们的共鸣，那套只为爱而活的理论也不再能说服观众。

从惊天骗局引入，以记者的视角逐一追踪信息来源，核查故事的细节和真实性，《虚构安娜》的开局极大地拔高了观众的期待，吊足了胃口。

现实、回忆多条支线交错，受害者、记者多种视角并行，配以精美奢华的时尚元素、紧密的台词与快节奏的剪辑手法，网飞竭力说服观众这的确是一场可与庞氏骗局相提并论的“惊天骗局”。

可随后的每一个情节都在走下坡路，想要塑造一个骗人终骗己的病态反面主角，却又缺乏铺垫导致最后的情节愈加突兀。

作为过于成熟的影视工厂，网飞深谙能激起互联网流量的热点，“不完美受害者”瑞秋、凤凰男律师、陷入职场与生育困境的新时代女性、新时代美国梦……过于重视身份、标签，反而将原本复杂的人塑造为扁平化的角色，混乱的话题不仅无法引起观众的共鸣，更是彻底毁掉了一个本可以讲好的故事。

毕竟对这个故事来说，再深刻的社会洞察都是建立在“诈骗”这一原型基础上的，诈骗手段的低劣、诈骗动机的浅薄，让一切浮于表面的口号失去根基，显得声嘶力竭。

-完-很多人喜欢带着对人性的乐观态度分析人物，但凯西、瑞秋、内芙都身处纽约这个名利场，不会做无利不起早的事，对安娜的复杂情感或许会影响他们的态度，但绝不对是动摇他们做判断的根本原因。

对瑞秋来说，安娜的骗局触碰了她的根本利益，却没能给她对应的回报。

她拥有利己主义者的强大优势，即哪怕深陷困境也要想尽办法扭亏为盈。

而凯西与瑞秋不同，她的工作更依赖口碑，一方面，安娜是她的客户，无论做了多糟糕的事，大众可以评判，但她不可以，因为那样会失去其他客户的信任；另一方面，凯西已经形成了一套成熟的价值观，安娜只是她众多名流客户中的一个，不足以煽动她成为追随者。

至于内芙，她对安娜的好感建立在“她从未欺骗我”这一事实基础上。

可能是出于对内芙追求电影梦的欣赏，安娜没有骗这个看上去有点单纯的女服务生。

但正如她男友所说，她的电影梦始终是嘴上说说，并没有真正付出过行动。

反而是在安娜入狱之后，她开始帮助其打造社交名媛的形象，执行力比追求电影梦时强太多了。

值得注意的是，无论是《虚构安娜》，还是经常被拿来与之比较的《Tinder诈骗王》，其原型都在出狱后依旧过着不错的生活，而他们的受害者却仍要偿还贷款。

在《虚构安娜》播出后，SNL紧随其后发布了恶搞视频： https://b23.tv/lINCwnx参考资料：[美]罗伯特·麦基：故事-材质、结构、风格和银幕剧作的原理[美]尼古拉斯·莱曼：“下一代”处于危机中的美国梦林毓敏：现代化背景下女性犯罪问题及其应对——女性犯罪与女性社会角色转变相关资料链接：剧集信息：https://movie.douban.com/subject/30246397/celebrities洁西卡普斯勒（Jessica Pressler）的《纽约杂志》专文〈安娜德尔维如何骗倒纽约派对圈〉（How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People）https://b23.tv/5EymNZJAnna Sorokin采访视频https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/1w0gZ77bUaqbDLWTlSDbQw我们找来了纽约的专栏作家SIMON VAN BOOY来聊一聊纽约上流设计俱乐部的那些事相关题材作品：了不起的盖茨比Tinder诈骗王猫鼠游戏（小李子主演的电影）妙警贼探（孔雀主演的美剧）大诈欺师

虚构安娜 (2022)7.22022 / 美国 / 剧情 / 大卫·弗兰科尔 艾伦·库拉斯 恩辛哈·斯图尔特 汤姆·维里卡 戴斯·冯·施勒·梅耶 / 朱莉娅·加纳 安娜·克拉姆斯基

人间画饼pua大师，包装得好听一点就是“向他们展示正在构建的光明未来”，学到了吗？

Anna在虚构一个新的Anna，能够让她抵抗世界赋予她的自卑感、能够融入她理想中的人群，她做到了，甚至让虚构的Anna把自己同化了，不承认旧的Anna了。

鸡汤就是鸡汤，fake it until make it, then? 记者和律师在我看来都是同情心过盛的角色，在某种程度上也被Anna给pua了，我疯狂同理并理解他们的爱人，站在旁观者的角度我甚至也觉得不可理喻。

很多人说第八集在讲些什么，虽然我不很喜欢那集重复极高的转场方式，但是它在告诉观众，不是父母的错，父母也无能为力，不是刚好再进一步程度上呈现Anna的crazy嘛？

但反过来说，也许真的没有人能理解Anna，所以Anna才一直这样活着，用自己的规则活在自己的世界，一种自保手段。

Ps. I am not special也是我的人生信条，激励着我和安慰着我。

网飞首页推荐的封面上，女主角Julia Garner戴着Anna Delvey标志性的黑框眼镜，头发蓬松分叉——这正是我当年在铺天盖地的媒体报道上对这个纽约骗子名媛的第一印象——她的发质如同她的气质一般发毛。

我本来对这一类社交八卦就不太感冒，所以从未细读新闻内容，只是隐隐觉得这个连假姓氏都既不德国也不贵族的25岁小姑娘，能骗倒纽约上层社交圈，接触到的应该是社交圈里不太入流的new money。

简而言之，没有底蕴识破她牵强附会的贵族背景；没有智力解读她不甚高明的自我包装；没有眼界看穿她似是而非的编造伎俩。

然而，这部以记者Vivian揭露事件真相的过程为切入点的9集网剧，做足了功夫，把一个看似“狗血”的骗子故事（基于事实）讲得里应外合，高潮迭起，层层反转，这主要归功于编剧的结构布局——每一集侧重于一个当事人的叙述视角——虽然因人物参与程度不同，偶有拖沓、注水的嫌疑——总体来说，为这个关于一个女骗子的故事提供了context（背景，语境），即为什么全球最“高大上”的曼哈顿社交圈会被这么一个初出茅庐的德国移民二代骗得团团转，甚至连华尔街最“精明”的金融律师都在劫难逃。

全剧看完，不难发现，Anna在曼哈顿富人圈混得风生水起的主要原因就是：她很擅长融入。

这种融入表面上看，是她坑蒙拐骗来的，比如伪造德国贵族背景，吹牛皮说有6千万美金的信托基金等着自己一到25岁就能兑现，明明是花别人钱、住别人豪宅、搭别人私人飞机和豪华游艇的leech（水蛭），却能心态自如，漫不经心，甚至对不够VVIP的待遇嗤之以鼻，直到所有被抱的大腿弃她而去，她也并未气馁妥协，而是进一步靠编织更弥天的谎言（选址牛逼的大楼，创建以自己名字命名的基金会，号称要做全球最高端的艺术、奢侈、富豪俱乐部），以期获得4千万美金的银行贷款……故事到了这里，Anna已经不是骗吃骗喝的小屁孩，如《天才普瑞利》那样从生活方式层面过几天富豪的日子，或是如《猫鼠游戏》那般纵横天下，潇洒挥霍，因为她自从有了华尔街资深金融律师的加持，那4千万美金的银行贷款居然并非天方夜谭。

如果最后Anna可以证明自己确实有那个所谓的德国家族信托基金，是否贵族根本无关紧要，之前的诸项欠款会得到解决，恶意透支信用卡也不过是有钱人对钱“毫不在意”的风度使然——也就是说，如果Anna真的有金钱后盾，不管这钱是俄罗斯黑手党的，或是别的什么灰色来路，凭借她的“融入”手腕，她都可以在曼哈顿富豪圈占有一席之地。

似乎，这才是本剧的核心宗旨：在“高大上”的纽约，本来就充斥了各种骗子，每个人都是hustler，每个人都want something——记者想要的不仅是挖掘真相，更是依靠流量置顶的文章夺回自己失去的事业；前男友想要的不仅是一段关系，更是靠着理想投射中的贵族富豪女友，从中产阶级步步高升；金融律师想要的不仅是大笔佣金，更是人到中年的激情回春与权势的无限扩张；就连《名利场》的编辑、酒店前台、私人教练这三朵塑料姐妹花，也都各怀企图，她们更像我们这些普通人，有着正常的慕强心理，也经常在虚荣心与廉耻心之间艰难徘徊。

Anna的所作所为虽然不可取，但她为了金钱和地位的不择手段，那股狠劲和巧劲，正是纽约的灵魂所在，她很聪明地窥视到了纽约的灵魂（"She took a look at the soul of New York"），发现这太契合自己了。

本片英文名是Inventing Anna，这恐怕有两层含义：第一层是Anna的self-invention，这个词在英文语境中有着奋发图强、改写命运的褒义含义；第二层是纽约的大环境促成了Anna的self-invention。

我们别忘了，当Anna第一次离开德国老家，先去了伦敦中央圣马丁，遂即辍学来到巴黎，而后又辗转到了纽约。

这三座城市是全球最顶尖的时尚中心（可见Anna对时尚的追求从未改变），同时，它们也都是老牌的资本主义中心，但纽约与其他两座城的不同之处在于，它没有太多的帝国主义痕迹，纽约的核心是金钱和利益，而血统和出身倒在其次。

作为一个在纽约、洛杉矶、伦敦、柏林都居住过的观众，我可以佐证的一点是，Anna的发质和口音都注定她不可能在欧洲混得开。

可是纽约呢？

纽约是最大胆的骗子能混得最开的地方。

或许，Anna原本甚至有一天可以成为美国总统。

从这个角度来说，Julia Garner的表演基于真实人物的特性，至少可以打8分。

如果观众觉得，如此浮夸的演技不可能接近真实，那么只能说，我们对真实的理解还很肤浅。

朱晓闻2022年2月于柏林关注萨尔维亚之蓝（Salvia_Blue）这里没有最有价值的观点，也没有最领先的想法，最有价值的观点在历史中重复了千百遍，最领先的想法是经独立思考分析的结晶。

这里有的是看似被遗忘的，鲜为人知的，极为小众的有趣的人、物、事。

Salvia_Blue

“Maybe She Had So Much Money She Just Lost Track of It” Jessica PresslerIt started with money, as it so often does in New York. A crisp $100 bill slipped across the smooth surface of the mid-century-inspired concierge desk at 11 Howard, the sleek new boutique hotel in Soho. Looking up, Neffatari Davis, the 25-year-old concierge, who goes by “Neff,” was surprised to see the cash had come from a young woman who seemed to be around her age. She had a heart-shaped face and pouty lips surrounded by a wild tangle of red hair, her eyes framed by incongruously chunky black glasses that Neff, an aspiring cinematographer with an eye for detail, identified as Céline. She was looking, she said in an accent that sounded European, for “the best food in Soho.”

Anna

Vivian原型、原作者：Jessica Pressler“What’s your name?” Neff asked, after the girl waved off her suggestions of Carbone and the Mercer Kitchen and settled on the Butcher’s Daughter.“Anna Delvey,” said the young woman. She’d be staying at the hotel for a month, she went on, which Neff also found surprising: Usually it was only celebrities who came for such long stretches. But Neff checked the system, and there it was. Delvey was booked into a Howard Deluxe, one of the hotel’s midrange options, about $400 a night, with ceramic sculptures on the walls and oversize windows looking onto the bustling streets of Soho. It was February 18, 2017.“Thanks,” said Delvey. “See you around.”That turned out to be a promise. Over the next few weeks, Delvey stopped by often to ask Neff’s advice, slipping her $100 each time. Neff would wax on about how Mr. Purple was totally washed and Vandal was for hipsters, while Delvey’s eyes would flit around behind her glasses. Eventually, Neff realized: Delvey already knew all the cool places to go — not only that, she knew the names of the bartenders and waiters and owners. “This is not a guest that needs my help,” it dawned on her. “This is a guest that wants my time.”This was not out of the ordinary. Since she’d started working there, Neff, a Washington, D.C., native with a wedge of natural hair, giant Margaret Keane eyes, and a gap-toothed smile, had found herself playing therapist to all manner of hotel guests: husbands cheating on their wives, wives getting away from their husbands. “You just sit there and listen, because that’s your concierge life,” she recalled recently, at a coffee shop near her apartment in Crown Heights.Usually, these guests went back to their own lives, leaving Neff to hers. But February became March, and Delvey kept showing up. She’d bring food down, or a glass of extra-dry white wine, and settle near Neff’s desk to chat. Some of the other hotel employees found Anna deeply annoying. She could be oddly ill-mannered for a rich person: Please and thank you were not in her vocabulary, and she would sometimes say things that were “Not racist,” Neff said, “but classist.” (“What are you bitches, broke?” Anna asked her and another hotel employee.) But to Neff, it didn’t come across as mean-spirited. More like she was some kind of old-fashioned princess who’d been plucked from an ancient European castle and deposited in the modern world, although according to Anna she came from modern-day Germany and her father ran a business producing solar panels. And despite her unassuming figure — “a sort of Sound of Music Fräulein,” one acquaintance later put it — Anna quickly established herself as one of 11 Howard’s most generous guests. “People would fight to take her packages upstairs,” said Neff. “Fight, because you knew you were getting $100.” Over time, Delvey got more and more comfortable in the hotel, swanning around in sheer Alexander Wang leggings or, occasionally, a hotel robe. “She ran that place,” said Neff. “You know how Rihanna walks out with wineglasses? That was Anna. And they let her. Bye, Ms. Delvey …”Anna was preparing to launch a business, a Soho House–ish type club, she told Neff, focused on art, with locations in L.A., London, Hong Kong, and Dubai, and Neff became her de facto secretary, organizing business lunches and dinners at restaurants like Seamore’s and the hotel’s own Le Coucou. (“That’s what they do in the rich culture, is meals,” said Neff.) On occasion, when Delvey showed up while the concierge desk was busy, she would stand at the counter, coolly counting out bills until she got Neff’s attention. “I’d be like, ‘Anna, there’s a line of eight people.’ But she’d keep putting money down.” And even though Neff had begun to think of Anna as not just a hotel guest but a friend, a real friend, she didn’t hesitate to take it. “A little selfish of me,” she admitted later. “But … yeah.”Who can blame her? This was Manhattan in the 21st century, and money is more powerful than ever. Rare is the city dweller who, when presented with an opportunity for a sudden and unexpected influx of cash, doesn’t grasp for it. Of course, this money almost always comes with strings attached. Sometimes you can barely see them, like that vaudeville bit in which the pawn dives for a loose bill only to find it pulled just ahead. Still, everyone makes the reach. Because here, money is the one thing that no one can ever have enough of.For a stretch of time in New York, no small amount of the cash in circulation was coming from Anna Delvey. “She gave to everyone,” said Neff. “Uber drivers, $100 cash. Meals — listen. You know how you reach for your credit card? She wouldn’t let me.”The way Anna spent money, it was like she couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. Her room was overflowing with shopping bags from Acne and Supreme, and in between meetings, she’d invite Neff to foot massages, cryotherapy, manicures (Anna favored “a light Wes Anderson pink,” according to Neff). One day, she brought Neff to a session with a personal trainer–slash–life coach she’d found online, a svelte, ageless Oprah-esque figure who works with celebrities like Dakota Johnson.“Stop sinking into your body,” the trainer commanded Anna. “Shoulders back, navel to spine. You are a bright woman; you want to be a businesswoman. You gotta be staying strong on your own power.”Afterward, as Neff panted on the sidelines, Anna bought a package of sessions. “It was, I’m not lying, $4,500,” said Neff.Anna paid cash.Neff’s boyfriend didn’t understand why she was spending so much time with this weird girl from work. Anna didn’t understand why Neff had a boyfriend. But he was rich, Neff protested. He’d promised to finance her first movie. “Dump him,” Anna advised. “I have more money.” She would finance the movie.Neff did dump the guy. Not because of what Anna had said, although she had no reason to doubt it. Her new friend, she discovered, belonged to a vast and glittering social circle. “Anna knew everyone,” said Neff. At night, she’d taken to hosting large dinners at Le Coucou, attended by CEOs, artists, athletes, even celebrities. One night, Neff found herself seated next to her childhood idol, Macaulay Culkin. “Which was awkward,” she said. “Because I had so many questions. And he was right there. But they were talking about, like, friend stuff. So I never got the chance to be like, ‘So, you the godfather to Michael Jackson’s kids?’”Despite her seemingly nomadic living situation, Anna had long been a figure on the New York social scene. “She was at all the best parties,” said marketing director Tommy Saleh, who met her in 2013 at Le Baron in Paris during Fashion Week. Delvey had been an intern at European scenester magazine Purple and appeared to be tight with the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Olivier Zahm, and its man-about-town, André Saraiva, an owner of Le Baron — two of “the 200 or so people you see everywhere,” as Saleh put it: Chilterns and Loulou’s in London; the Crow’s Nest in Montauk; Paul’s Baby Grand and the Bowery Hotel; Frieze, Coachella, Art Basel. “She introduced herself, and she was a sweet girl, very polite,” said Saleh. “Then we’re just hanging with my friends all of a sudden.”Soon, Anna was everywhere too. “She managed to be in all the sort of right places,” recalled one acquaintance who met Anna in 2015 at a party thrown by a start-up mogul in Berlin. “She was wearing really fancy clothing” — Balenciaga, or maybe Alaïa — “and someone mentioned that she flew in on a private jet.” It was unclear where exactly Anna came from — she told people she was from Cologne, but her German wasn’t very good — or what the source of her wealth was. But that wasn’t unusual. “There are so many trust-fund kids running around,” said Saleh. “Everyone is your best friend, and you don’t know a thing about anyone.”She was wearing really fancy clothing. Some one mentioned she flew in on a private jet.After a gallerist at Pace introduced her to Michael Xufu Huang, the extremely young, extremely dapper collector and founder of Beijing’s M Woods museum, Anna proposed they go together to the Venice Biennale. Huang thought it was “a little weird” when Anna asked him to book the plane tickets and hotel on his credit card. “But I was like, Okay, whatever,” he said. It was also strange, he noticed during their time there, that Anna only ever paid with cash, and after they got back, she seemed to forget she’d said she’d pay him back. “It was not a lot of money,” he said. “Like two or three thousand dollars.” After a while, Huang kind of forgot about it too.When you’re superrich, you can be forgetful in this way. Which is maybe why no one thought much of the instances in which Anna did things that seemed odd for a wealthy person: calling a friend to have her put a taxi from the airport on her credit card, or asking to sleep on someone’s couch, or moving into someone’s apartment with the tacit agreement to pay rent, and then … not doing it. Maybe she had so much money she just lost track of it.The following January, Anna hired a PR firm to put together a birthday party at one of her favorite restaurants, Sadelle’s in Soho. “It was a lot of very cool, very successful people,” said Huang, who, while aware Anna owed him money for their Venice trip, remained mostly unconcerned about it, at least until the restaurant, having seen Polaroids of Huang and Anna at the party on Instagram, messaged him a few days later. “They were like, ‘Do you have her contact info?’” he says now. “‘Because she didn’t pay her bill.’ Then I realized, Oh my God, she is not legit.”As Anna bounced around the globe, there was some speculation as to where her means to do this came from, though no one seemed to care that much so long as the bills got paid.“I thought she had family money,” said Jayma Cardoso, one of the owners of the Surf Lodge in Montauk. Delvey’s father was a diplomat to Russia, one friend was sure. No, another insisted, he was an oil-industry titan. “As far as I knew, her family was the Delvey family that is big in antiques in Germany,” said another acquaintance, a millionaire tech CEO. (It is unclear what family he was referring to.) The CEO met Anna through the boyfriend she was running around with for a while, a futurist on the TED-Talks circuit who’d been profiled in The New Yorker.For about two years, they’d been kind of like a team, showing up in places frequented by the itinerant wealthy, living out of fancy hotels and hosting sceney dinners where the Futurist talked up his app and Delvey spoke of the private club she wanted to open once she turned 25 and came into her trust fund.Then it was 2016. The Futurist, whose app never materialized, moved to the Emirates, and Anna came to New York on her own, determined to make her arts club a reality, although she worried to Marc Kremers, the London creative director helping her with branding, that the name she’d come up with — the Anna Delvey Foundation, or ADF — was “too narcissistic.”Early on, Anna and architect Ron Castellano, a friend of her Purple cohort, had scouted a building on the Lower East Side, but it turned out to be too close to a school to get a liquor license, and soon Anna had shifted her aspirations uptown. Through her connections, she’d befriended Gabriel Calatrava, one of the sons of famed architect Santiago. His family’s real-estate advisory company, Calatrava Grace, had helped her “secure the lease,” she informed people, on the perfect space: 45,000 square feet occupying six floors of the historic Church Missions House, a landmarked building on the corner of Park Avenue and 22nd. The heart of the club would be, she said, a “dynamic visual-arts center,” with a rotating array of pop-up shops curated by artist Daniel Arsham, whom she knew from her Purpledays, and exhibitions and installations from blue-chip artists like Urs Fischer, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, and Tracey Emin. For the inaugural event, Anna told people, the artist Christo had agreed to wrap the building. Some people raised their eyebrows at the grandiosity of this plan, but to others it made sense, in a New York kind of way. The building’s owner, developer Aby Rosen, was no stranger to the private-club genre; a few years earlier, he’d bought a midtown building and opened the Core Club, which housed an art collection. He also happened to own 11 Howard.With the help of Calatrava executive Michael Jaffe, a former employee of Rosen’s RFR realty firm, Anna soon began meeting with big names in the food-and-beverage world to discuss possibilities in the space. One was André Balazs, who, according to Anna, suggested they add two floors of hotel rooms. Another was Richie Notar, one of the founders of Nobu, who did a walk-through of the building with Anna as she described her vision, which included three restaurants, a juice bar, and a German bakery. “Apparently her family was prominent in Germany,” Notar said, “and funding this big project for her.”But a project of this size required more capital than even someone of Anna’s apparently considerable resources could manage: approximately $25 million, “in addition to $25m existing,” Anna wrote in an email to a prominent Silicon Valley publicist in 2016. “If you think this is something you could help us with and have anyone in mind who would be a good cultural fit for this project.” But by fall, Anna had turned on the idea of private investors, in part because she didn’t want anyone telling her what to do. “If we were to bring in investors, they would say, ‘Oh, she’s 25; she doesn’t know what she’s doing,’” Anna explained later. “I wanted to build the first one myself.”To help secure a loan, one of Anna’s “finance friends” had told her to get in touch with Joel Cohen, best known as the prosecutor of Jordan Belfort, a.k.a. the Wolf of Wall Street. Cohen now worked at Gibson Dunn, a large firm known for its real-estate practice. He put her in touch with Andy Lance, a partner who happened to have the exact kind of expertise that Anna was looking for. In the past, she’d complained to friends about feeling condescended to by older male lawyers because of her age and gender. But Lance was different. “He knows how to talk to women,” she said. “And he would explain to me the right amount, without being patronizing.” According to Anna, she and Lance spoke every day. “He was there all the time. He would answer in the middle of the night, or when he was in Turks and Caicos for Christmas.”After filling out Gibson Dunn’s new-client-intake form, which included checking boxes that confirmed the client had the resources to pay and would not embarrass the firm, Lance put Anna in touch with several large financial institutions, including Los Angeles–based City National Bank and Fortress Investment Group. “Our client Anna Delvey is undertaking a very exciting redevelopment of 281 Park Avenue South, backed by a marquee team for this type of venue and space,” Lance wrote in one email, in which he explained that Anna needed the loan because “her personal assets, which are quite substantial, are located outside the US, some of them in trust with UBS outside the US.” The monies she received, he added, would be “fully secured” by a letter of credit from the Swiss bank. (Lance did not respond to requests for comment.)When the banker at City National asked to see the UBS statements, he received a list of figures from a man named Peter W. Hennecke. “Please use these for your projections for now,” Hennecke wrote in an email. “I’ll send the physical statements on Monday.”“Question: Are you from UBS?” the banker replied, puzzled by Hennecke’s AOL address.No, Anna explained. “Peter is head of my family office.”With Anna in fund-raising mode, the artists and celebrity friends at her dinners were gradually supplanted by men with “Goyard briefcases and Rolexes, and Hublot, like that Jay-Z lyric,” according to Neff, who at one point looked across the table at Le Coucou and recognized the face of infamous “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli, who would later be convicted of securities fraud. Anna introduced Shkreli as a “dear friend,” although it was really the only time they’d met, Shkreli told New York in a letter from the penitentiary; Anna was close with one of his executives. “Anna did seem to be a popular ‘woman about town’ who knew everyone,” he wrote. “Even though I was nationally known, I felt like a computer geek next to her.”As for Neff, she was not as discreet as she had been with Macaulay Culkin, tweeting after the fact that Shkreli had played her and Anna the leaked tracks from Tha Carter V, the delayed Lil Wayne album he’d acquired. Anna was furious, but Neff refused to delete the tweet. “I wanted everybody to know that I heard this album that the world is waiting on! But Anna was pretty mad. She didn’t come down to my desk for maybe three days.”In the meantime, though, Neff said she had another visitor: Charlie Rosen. Aby Rosen’s sons were generally regarded as pretty-boy trust-fund kids — a few years back, they made headlines for reportedly racing ATVs over piping-plover nests in the Hamptons — but Neff liked them, and when Charlie stopped by one evening, she dropped that she’d recently been to visit the Park Avenue building that one of the guests, a young woman, was leasing from their father for an arts club.Rosen looked confused. He didn’t appear to have ever heard of Anna or her project. “What room is she staying in?” he asked. When Neff told him, he looked skeptical. “If my dad has someone buying property from him staying here,” he said, “would she be in a Deluxe or would she be in a suite?”He had a point. A few days later, Neff broached the subject. “Why did you tell me you’re buying property from Aby but you’re not staying in a suite?” she asked.Anna looked surprised but answered immediately. “She said, ‘You ever have someone do so many favors for you, you kind of just want to pay them back in silence?’”“Genius,” Neff said.Soon it was April. Spring was poking its head through the gray New York City sidewalks, and the weather was getting warm enough to sip rosé on rooftops, one of Anna’s favorite activities, although the circle she was doing this with, Neff noticed, was smaller than it had been in the past and mainly consisted of herself; Rachel Williams, a photo editor at Vanity Fair; and the trainer, who, although she was notably older, had taken a motherly interest in her client. “I know a lot of trust-fund babies, and I was impressed that Anna had something that she wanted to do, instead of, you know, living like a Kardashian,” said the trainer. Plus, she said, Anna seemed lonely. Neff noticed the same thing. “What happened to your friends?” she asked Anna after one night out. “Oh,” Anna said vaguely. “They’re all mad I left Purple.” She was too busy for parties, anyway, she said, what with building her business.It was true that Anna was spending a lot of time working, frowning at her in-box and huffing into the phone. “She was always on the phone with lawyers,” said Neff, who would sort of listen in from the concierge desk. “They were always toning her down. Like, ‘Anna, you’re trying to make something that’s worth this much be worth that much, and that’s just not how it works.’”Back in December, City National had turned down her loan request — a management decision is how Anna framed it — and while the ever-loyal Andy Lance was reaching out to hedge funds and banks for alternate financing, executives at RFR were pressuring her to come up with the money fast, Anna said. If she didn’t, they were going to give it to another party, rumored to be the Swedish museum Fotografiska. “How do they even pay for that?” Anna fumed. “It’s like two old guys.”In the meantime, Anna was having cash-flow issues of her own. One night, Anna asked Neff to dinner at Sant Ambroeus in Soho. They were by themselves, which was unusual. Even more unusually, at the end of the meal, Anna’s card was declined. “Here,” she told the waiter, handing him a list of credit-card numbers. In Neff’s admittedly foggy memory, they were in a small book, though it may have been the Notes app on her phone. But she’s clear on what happened next. “The waiter went back to his station and began entering the numbers. There were like 12, and I know the guy tried them all,” she said. “He was trying it and then shaking his head. And then I started to sweat, because I knew the bill was mine.” While the amount — $286 — was a fraction of what Anna usually spent, it was a lot for Neff, who quietly transferred money from her savings to cover the bill. Doing so made her feel sick, but after all the money Anna had spent on her, she understood it was her turn.What happened to all your friends?” “Oh, they’re all mad I left Purple.Not long after, Neff’s manager called and asked her to address a delicate issue: It seemed 11 Howard didn’t have a credit card on file for Anna Delvey. Because the hotel had been so new when she arrived, and because she was staying for such an unusually long time, and because she was a client of Aby Rosen’s and a very valued guest, it had agreed to accept a wire transfer. But a month and a half later, no such transfer had arrived, and now Delvey owed the hotel some $30,000, including charges from Le Coucou that she’d been billing to her room.Neff wasn’t sure what to think. She was sure Anna was good for the money. The day after the Sant Ambroeus debacle, she’d paid her back triple. In cash.When Anna came by her desk the next day, Neff took her aside and told her that management had said Anna needed to pay her bill. Anna nodded, her eyes inscrutable behind her sunglasses. There was a wire transfer on the way, she said. It should arrive soon. Then, about midway into her shift, Anna came by the desk again and, with a mischievous smile on her face, told Neff to expect a package. When it arrived, Neff opened it to find a case of 1975 Dom Pérignon, with Anna’s instructions to distribute it among the staff. Neff hesitated. Gifts, especially of the liquid variety, needed to be approved by management. “They were like, ‘How do we look approving this if she hasn’t paid us?’ So they went after her. ‘We need the money or we’re locking you out.’”One morning, Anna showed up to her morning session with the trainer looking visibly upset. “Can we do a life-coaching session?” she pleaded. She was trying to build something, to do something, she went on, and no one was taking her seriously. “They think because I am young, they think I have all this money,” she sobbed. “I told them the money would be there soon. I’m having it transferred.”The trainer told her to breathe. “I feel like you are in a little over your head,” she offered. “Maybe you just need a break.”Then something miraculous happened. Citibank sent 11 Howard a wire transfer on behalf of Ms. Anna Delvey for $30,000. Neff called Anna on her cell phone. “Where you at?” she asked. Across the street at Rick Owens, Anna replied. Neff checked the clock: It was her lunch break. When she came through the door of the store, Anna was holding up a T-shirt. “Look what I found,” she said, beaming. “It’s perfect for you.” She was right: The shirt was the exact orangey red of the creepy bathroom scene in The Shining, one of Neff’s favorite movies, and the signature color of the brand Neff was trying to launch, FilmColours. It was also $400. “I’d love to buy it for you,” Anna said.A few weeks later, Anna told Neff she was going to Omaha. “I’m going to see Warren Buffett,” she announced, grandly. One of her bankers had gotten her on the list to Berkshire Hathaway’s annual investment conference, and she’d decided to bring the executive from Martin Shkreli’s hedge fund, who was fun and a friend of his, on the private jet she’d rented to take them there. “I’ll be back,” she promised Neff.But there was still a problem with her account at 11 Howard. Despite being repeatedly asked by hotel management, she still hadn’t given the hotel a working credit card, and her charges continued to mount. Following through on their warning, hotel employees changed the code on the lock of Anna’s room and put her things in storage. Neff texted Anna in Omaha to deliver the bad news.“How can they do that?” Anna asked indignantly, although if she was truly shocked, it didn’t last long. The conference had been great, she said. The best part had happened the very last day, when, having exhausted all the opportunities for luxury Omaha had to offer, Anna and her party had taken a cab driver’s suggestion to check out the zoo. They hadn’t expected much, but then, while they were riding around on their golf carts, they’d stumbled on a private dinner hosted by Buffett for a slew of VIPs. “Everyone was there,” she said. “Like, Bill Gates was there.”For a little while, they’d watched through the glass, then they’d slipped in and mingled among them.When Anna got back to 11 Howard, she made her fury known. She was going to purchase web domains in all of the managers’ names, she told Neff, a trick she’d learned from Shkreli: “They’re going to pay me one day,” she said. Also, she was moving out — as soon as she got back from Morocco. Inspired by Khloé Kardashian, she’d reserved a $7,000-a-night riad with a private butler at La Mamounia, an opulent resort in Marrakech, and asked Neff if she wanted to join herself, the trainer, Rachel Williams, and a videographer, who she was hoping would make “a behind-the-scenes documentary” about the process of creating her arts foundation on a vacation. They’d wake up to massages, she said, and spend their days exploring the souk, lounging by the pool. Neff wanted to go, badly. But there was no way the hotel would let her take off eight days. “Just quit,” Anna said airily.For a day or two, Neff considered it. But her mom told her she had a bad feeling about it. “Nothing in life is free,” she said. So Neff stayed behind, morosely following her friend’s journey on Instagram. “I was pretty jealous,” she said.As she would find out, the pictures didn’t exactly tell the whole story. Two days in, after coming down with a nasty case of food poisoning, the trainer had gone back to New York early.About a week later, the trainer got a call from Anna, who was alone at the Four Seasons in Casablanca and hysterical. There was, she sobbed, a problem with her bank. Her credit cards weren’t going through, and the hotel was threatening to call the police. After calming Anna down, the trainer asked to speak to management. “They were like, ‘She is going to be arrested,’” she said.The trainer was torn: On the one hand, this was not her problem. On the other, Anna was her client, her friend, and someone’s daughter. Offering a prayer to the universe, the trainer gave the hotel her credit-card number and, when it failed to go through, made the requisite calls to her bank. When it still failed to go through, she went the extra mile: She called a friend and had her give her credit-card information. When that failed to work, the hotel conceded the problem might be on their end.Later, the trainer would recognize this as a substantial gift from the Universe. At the time, she promised the hotel in Casablanca that Anna would make them whole. “Trust me,” she told them. “I know she’s good for it. I just spent two days with her in Marrakech.” When Anna came back on the phone, the trainer told her she was booking her a ticket back to New York. Anna snuffled her thanks. Then she asked for one last favor: “Can you get me first class?” she asked.A few days later, a silvery Tesla pulled up in front of 11 Howard. Neff, at the concierge desk, felt her cell phone buzz. “Look out the window,” said a familiar German accent. The car’s futuristic doors slowly raised up to reveal Anna. “I’m here to get my stuff,” she said.Anna was making good on her promise to leave 11 Howard. She was moving downtown to the Beekman Hotel, she told Neff, who watched her drive away in a car that she only later realized someone must have rented to her. Moving didn’t stem Anna’s mounting troubles. Not only did she owe the hotel, but, over in London, Marc Kremers, the designer she’d hired to do her branding work, was getting antsy: The £16,800 fee Anna had promised would arrive by wire almost a year before had yet to materialize, and now emails to Anna’s financial adviser, Peter W. Hennecke, were bouncing back. “Peter passed away last month,” Anna replied. “Please refrain from contacting or mentioning any communication with him going forward.”In retrospect, her terseness was understandable. Things were rapidly deteriorating for Anna Delvey in New York. Twenty days into her stay, the Beekman Hotel, having realized it did not have a working credit card on file and having not received the promised wire transfer for her balance of $11,518.59, locked Anna out of her room and confiscated her belongings. A subsequent two-day stay at the W Hoteldowntown ended in a similar fashion, and by July 5, Anna was effectively homeless, wandering the streets in threadbare Alexander Wang sportswear.Late one night, she made her way to the trainer’s apartment and dialed her from outside. “I’m right near your building,” she said. “Do you think we could talk?”The trainer hesitated: She was in the middle of a date. But there was a desperate note in Anna’s voice. She made her way to her lobby, where she found Anna with tears streaming down her face. “I’m trying to do this thing,” she sobbed. “And it’s so hard.”Maybe she should call her family, the trainer suggested. She would, Anna replied, but her parents were in Africa. “Do you mind if I crash at your place tonight?” No, the trainer said, she had a date.“I really just don’t want be alone,” Anna sniffled. “I might do something.”The date hid in the bedroom while the trainer made a bed for her unexpected houseguest and offered her a glass of water.“Do you have any Pellegrino?” Anna asked. There was one large bottle left. Anna ignored the two glasses placed on the counter and began swilling from the bottle. “I’m so tired,” she yawned.As Anna slept, the trainer’s spidey sense began to tingle. “I mean, I’m born and raised in New York,” she told me later. “I’m not stupid.” She texted Rachel Williams, who told her about what had happened at La Mamounia: Apparently, after the trainer returned to New York, the credit card Anna had used to book the hotel was found to be nonfunctional, and when Anna was unable to produce a new form of payment and a pair of threatening goons appeared in the doorway, the photo editor was forced to put the balance — $62,000, more than she was paid in a year — on the Amex she sometimes used for work expenses. Anna had promised her a wire transfer, but a month later, all Rachel received was $5,000, and her excuses had turned “Kafkaesque.”The following morning, the trainer resolved to draw a clear boundary. After lending Anna a clean (and flattering) dress, she sent her on her way with a gratis motivational speech. But when Anna walked out the door, she left her laptop behind. The trainer was having none of it. She deposited the computer at the front desk and texted Anna that she could pick it up there.That evening, the trainer got a call from her doorman. Anna was in the lobby. He’d told her that the trainer was out, at which point she’d asked for access to her suite. When he refused, Anna had resolved to wait for the trainer to return home.“Let me know when she goes,” the trainer told the doorman.But hours passed and Anna didn’t budge. “They were like, She’s still here. She’s texting,” the trainer recalls. “I was like, Oh my God, I’m a prisoner of my own house.” It wasn’t until after midnight that Anna finally left the building.The relief the trainer felt soon turned into worry. “I started calling the hotels to see where she was staying, and each hotel was like, ‘This girl,’ she said.She found out why later that month, when both the Beekman and the W Hotel filed charges against Anna for theft of services. WANNABE SOCIALITE BUSTED FOR SKIPPING OUT ON PRICEY HOTEL BILLS, blared the headline in the Post, which referenced an incident in which Anna attempted to leave the restaurant at Le Parker without paying. “Why are you making a big deal about this?” she’d protested to police. “Give me five minutes and I can get a friend to pay.”But no friends arrived. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding, as Anna told Todd Spodek, the criminal attorney she hired to fight the misdemeanor charges. Maybe the poised young woman in the Audrey Hepburn dress who’d cold-called him on his cell phone repeatedly, insisting it was an emergency until he’d agreed to come into his office on a Saturday, really was a wealthy German heiress, he thought, as his 4-year-old pasted Paw Patrol stickers up one of Anna’s bare arms, and her credit cards had gotten jammed up, or someone had taken away her trust fund. Just in case, Spodek, whose everyday clientele includes grifters, dog-murderers, femme fatales, rapists, and cybercriminals, among other miscreants, had her sign a lien on all of her assets, one that would ensure he got paid. On her way out, Anna asked a favor. “I kind of need a place to stay,” she said. Spodek demurred. The last thing his wife wanted was for him to bring his work home with him.Anna again got in touch with the trainer, who did not invite her to stay but instead organized an intervention at a nearby restaurant, during which she and Rachel Williams attempted to get answers: about why Anna had done what she’d done, who she really was, if she’d ever planned on paying anyone back. Anna hemmed and hawed and dissembled and prevaricated and, as the women got increasingly angry, allowed two fat tears to roll down her cheeks. “I’ll have enough to pay everyone,” she sniffled. “Once I get the lease signed …”“Anna,” the trainer said, summoning her last shred of patience. “The building has been rented.”She held up her iPhone and showed her the headline: FOTOGRAFISKA SIGNS A LEASE FOR ENTIRE 45K SF AT ABY ROSEN’S BUILDING.“That’s fake news,” Anna said.Is “Fotografiska really get the building?” sighed the tiny, accented voice after the recording identifying the call as coming from Rikers Island, where Anna Delvey, a.k.a. Anna Sorokin, has been remanded without bail since October 2017.As it turned out, Anna’s hotel bills were merely the first loose threads in a web of fraudulent activity, one that began to unravel in November 2016, after she submitted documents claiming a net worth of €60 million in Swiss accounts to City National Bank in pursuit of a $22 million dollar loan. The following month, she submitted the same documents to Fortress in an attempt to secure a $25 million to $35 million loan. After that bank asked her for $100,000 to perform due diligence, she convinced a representative at City National to extend her a $100,000 line of credit, which she then wired to Fortress. Then, apparently spooked by Fortress’s decision to send representatives to Switzerland to personally check her assets, she withdrew herself from the process halfway through, wiring the remaining $55,000 to a Citibank account that she used for “personal expenses … shopping at Forward by Elyse Walker, Apple, and Net-a-Porter,” according to the New York District Attorney’s office. Then, in April, she deposited $160,000 worth of bad checks into the same account, managing to withdraw $70,000 before they were returned, which is how she managed to pay off 11 Howard and, ostensibly, buy Neff’s T-shirt and the domain names of the managers of the hotel. (“They called me down to the office. They said, ‘Neff, did you know about this?’ And I started dying laughing. I thought it was a boss move.”) In May, Anna convinced the company Blade to charter her a $35,000 jet to Omaha by sending them a forged confirmation for a wire transfer from Deutsche Bank. It might have helped that she had the business card of the CEO, whom she’d met in passing at Soho House but who says he didn’t actually know her at all. Not wanting to leave Anna homeless after their intervention last summer, the trainer and a friend agreed to put Anna up at a hotel for one night, after having the hotel remove the mini-bar and giving strict instructions not to allow her any room service. She subsequently checked in to the Bowery Hotel for two nights, sending the hotel a receipt for a wire transfer from Deutsche Bank that never came. Rachel Williams, City National, and others also received phony wire-transfer receipts, which a representative of the bank identified as forged. Anna’s “family adviser,” the late Peter W. Hennecke, seems to have been a fictional character; his cell-phone number belonged to a now-defunct burner phone from a supermarket, New York found. (A living Peter Hennecke did not return calls for comment.) Later in the summer, with her misdemeanor charges pending, Anna deposited two bad checks into an account at Signature Bank, netting her $8,200, which is how she managed to take what she said was a “planned trip” to California, where she was arrested outside of Passages in Malibu and brought back to New York to face six counts of grand larceny and attempted grand larceny, in addition to theft of services, according to the indictment. “I like L.A.,” she giggled when I visited her at Rikers this past March. “L.A. in the winter, New York in spring and autumn, and Europe in summer.”People looked over curiously. “She’s like a unicorn in there,” Todd Spodek, Anna’s lawyer, had told me. “Everyone else is in there for like, stabbing their baby daddy.” He had mentioned that his client was taking incarceration unusually in stride, and indeed, this appeared to be the case.“This place is not that bad at all actually,” Anna told me, eyes sparkling behind her Céline glasses. “People seem to think it’s horrible, but I see it as like, this sociological experiment.”She’d made friends, of course. The murderers were the most interesting to her. “There are couple of girls who are here for financial crimes as well,” she told me. “This one girl, she’s been stealing other people’s identities. I didn’t realize it was so easy.”Over the course of three months, I spoke to Anna over the phone and visited her several times, occasionally bringing her copies of Forbes, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal at her request. Clad in a beige jumpsuit, her $800 highlights faded and her $400 eyelash extensions long fallen away, she looked like a normal 27-year-old girl, which is what she is.Anna Sorokin was born in Russia in 1991, and moved to Germany in 2007, when she was 16, with her younger brother and her parents, who, after being independently tracked down by and speaking with New York, asked to remain anonymous, as news of their daughters arrest has not yet reached the small rural community where they live.Anna attended high school in Eschweiler, a small working-class town 60 kilometers outside Cologne, near the Belgian and Dutch border. Her classmates remember her as quiet, with an unwieldy command of German. Her father had worked as a truck driver and later as an executive at a transport company until it became insolvent in 2013, whereupon he opened a heating-and-cooling business specializing in energy-efficient devices. Anna’s father was circumspect about the family’s finances, possibly out of a not-unreasonable fear of being held responsible for his daughter’s debts, which it was suggested to New York multiple times are larger and more wide-ranging than officially documented. “She screwed basically everyone,” said the acquaintance in Berlin, who passed on the names of several individuals who were said to have had amounts large and small borrowed or stolen but were too embarrassed to come forward. (Also paranoid: “I heard she commissions these stories,” I was told more than once, after I reached out to alleged victims. “They’re strategic leaks.”)In any case, according to Anna’s father: “Until now, we have never heard of any trust fund.”That said, he went on, the family did support her to an extent after Anna graduated from high school in 2011. She moved first to London, where she attended Central Saint Martins College, then she dropped out and returned to Berlin, where she interned in the fashion department of a public-relations firm before relocating to Paris, where she landed a coveted internship at Purple magazine and became Anna Delvey. Her parents, who say they do not recognize the surname, told New York: “We always paid for her accommodations, her rent, and other matters. She assured us these costs were the best investment. If ever she needed something more at one point or another, it didn’t matter. The future was always bright.”Anna, in jail, told me: “My parents had high expectations. They always trusted me with my decision-making. I guess they regret it now.”Over the course of our conversations, Anna never admitted any guilt, although she did say she felt bad about what happened with Rachel Williams. “I am very upset that things went that way and I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she said. “But I really can’t do anything about it, being in here.”She expressed frustration about not being able to bail herself out. “If they were doubting — ‘Oh, she can’t pay for anything’— why not give me bail and see?” she challenged. “If I was such a fraud, it would be such an easy resolution. Will she bail herself out?”She was frustrated with the New York Post’s characterization of her as a “wannabe socialite” — “I was never trying to be a socialite,” she pointed out. “I had dinners, but they were work dinners. I wanted to be taken seriously” — and the District Attorney’s portrayal of her as, as Anna put it, “a greedy idiot” who had committed a kind of harebrained Ponzi scheme in order to go shopping. “If I really wanted the money, I would have better and faster ways to get some,” she groused. “Resilience is hard to come by, but not capital.”She seemed most interested in expressing that her plans to create the Anna Delvey Foundation were real. She’d had all of those conversations and meetings and sent all of those emails and commissioned those materials because she thought it was actually going to happen. “I had what I thought was a great team around me, and I was having fun,” she said. Sure, she said, she might have done a few things wrong. “But that doesn’t diminish the hundred things I did right.”Maybe it could have happened. In this city, where enormous amounts of invisible money trade hands every day, where glass towers are built on paperwork promises, why not? If Aby Rosen, the son of Holocaust survivors, could come to New York and fill skyscrapers full of art, if the Kardashians could build a billion-dollar empire out of literally nothing, if a movie star like Dakota Johnson could sculpt her ass so that it becomes the anchor of a major franchise, why couldn’t Anna Delvey? 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? Watching the Rikers guard shove Fast Companyinto a manila envelope, I realized what Anna had in common with the people she’d been studying in the pages of that magazine: She saw something others didn’t. Anna looked at the soul of New York and recognized that if you distract people with shiny objects, with large wads of cash, with the indicia of wealth, if you show them the money, they will be virtually unable to see anything else. And the thing was: It was so easy.“Money, like, there’s an unlimited amount of capital in the world, you know?” Anna said to me at one point. “But there’s limited amounts of people who are talented.”

Rachel 和 AnnaRachel在名利场发表的原文：“AS AN ADDED BONUS, SHE PAID FOR EVERYTHING”: MY BRIGHT-LIGHTS MISADVENTURE WITH A MAGICIAN OF MANHATTANBY RACHEL DELOACHE WILLIAMSShe walked into my life in Gucci sandals and Céline glasses, and showed me a glamorous, frictionless world of hotel living and Le Coucou dinners and infrared saunas and Moroccan vacations. And then she made my $62,000 disappear.According to my closest friends and various suspect Internet sources, turning 29 on January 29, 2017 marked my golden birthday. At the time, I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I had a gut feeling about my 30th year: it was going to be special; it was going to be good.It was a total disaster.It began with Anna. In her signature black athleisure wear and oversize Céline sunglasses, she sat beside me in the S.U.V., pecking at her phone. Seemingly everything she owned was packed into Rimowa suitcases and stacked in the trunk, just behind our heads. We were running late. Anna was always late. Our S.U.V. hummed along the cobblestones of Crosby Street as we drove from 11 Howard, the hotel Anna had called home for three months, to the Mercer, the hotel Anna planned to move into when we got back from our trip. The bellhops at the Mercer helped us to off-load her bags (all but one), and they checked them away to await Anna’s return. Our errand complete, we climbed back into the car and set off for J.F.K. two hours before our flight: we were Marrakech-bound.Anna taking an iPhone photo during a daytrip to Kasbah Tamadot Sir Richard Bransons resort in Moroccos High Atlas...Anna, taking an iPhone photo during a day-trip to Kasbah Tamadot, Sir Richard Branson’s resort in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains. Anna returned for a stay at Kasbah Tamadot after leaving La Mamounia. I first met Anna the year prior, in early 2016, at Happy Ending, a restaurant-lounge on Broome Street with a bistro on the ground floor, and a popular nightclub past the bouncer one flight down. I was with friends in the lounge downstairs. It was a group that I saw almost exclusively on nights out, fashion friends, whom I’d met since moving to the city in 2010. We walked in as the space was kicking into gear, not empty but not crowded. Young men and women made laps through machine-pumped fog, scouting for action and a place to settle in, as they sipped their vodka soda through plastic black straws. We made our way to the right and back, where the fog and people were denser and the music was louder.I can’t remember which arrived first: the expectant bucket of ice and stack of glasses, or “Anna Delvey”—but I knew that she had appeared and with her came bottle service. She was a stranger to me, and yet not unknown. I’d seen her on Instagram, smiling at events, drinking at parties, oftentimes alongside my own friends and acquaintances. I’d seen that @annadelvey (since changed to @annadlvv) had 40K followers.The new arrival, in a clingy black dress and flat Gucci sandals, slid into the banquette. She had a cherubic face with oversize blue eyes and pouty lips. Her features and proportions were classical—almost anachronistic—with a roundness that would suit Ingres or John Currin. She greeted me and her ambiguously accented voice was unexpectedly high-pitched.Pleasantries led to discussion of how Anna first came into our friend group. She said she had interned for Purple magazine, in Paris (I’d seen her in photos with the magazine’s editor-in-chief), and evidently traveled in similar social circles. It was the quintessential nice-to-meet-you-in-New York conversation: hellos, exchange of niceties, how do you know X, what do you do for work?I CAN’T REMEMBER WHICH ARRIVED FIRST: THE EXPECTANT BUCKET OF ICE AND STACK OF GLASSES, OR “ANNA DELVEY”—BUT I KNEW THAT SHE HAD APPEARED AND WITH HER CAME BOTTLE SERVICE.“I work at Vanity Fair,” I told her. The usual dialogue ensued: “in the photo department,” I elaborated. “Yes, I love it. I’ve been there for six years.” She was attentive and engaged. She ordered another bottle of vodka. She picked up the tab.Not long after we first met, I was invited to join Anna and a mutual friend for dinner at Harry’s, a steakhouse downtown, not far from my office. The vibe at Harry’s was distinctly masculine, fussy but not frilly, with leather seating and wood-paneled walls. Anna was there when I arrived, and the friend came a few minutes later. We were shown to our table, and my company ordered oysters and a round of espresso martinis. Conversation went along, as did the cocktails. I’d never had an espresso martini, but it went down just fine.Anna told us huffily that she’d spent the day in meetings with lawyers. “What for?” I asked. She lit up. She was hard at work on her art foundation—a “dynamic visual-arts center dedicated to contemporary art,” she explained, referring vaguely to a family trust. She planned to lease the historic Church Missions House, a building on Park Avenue South and 22nd Street, to house a night lounge, bar, art galleries, studio space, restaurants, and a members-only club. In my line of work, I had often encountered ambitious, well-off individuals, so though her undertaking sounded grand in scale and promising in theory, my sincere enthusiasm hardly outweighed a measured skepticism.For the rest of 2016, I saw Anna every few weekends. As a visiting German citizen, she’d explained, she didn’t have a full-time residence. She was living in the Standard, High Line, not far from my small apartment in Manhattan’s West Village. Anna intrigued me, and she seemed eager to be friends. I was flattered. I saw her on adventure-filled nights out, for drinks and sometimes dinner, usually with a group, but occasionally just the two of us. Towards autumn of that same year, Anna told me she was returning to Cologne, where she said she was from, just before the expiration of her visa.Nearly half a year later, she came back.On Saturday, May 13, 2017, we landed in Marrakech. Our hotel sent a V.I.P. service to greet us at the airport. We were escorted through Customs and taken to two awaiting Land Rovers. After a 10-minute drive, we pulled up to a palatial compound and entered through its gates. At the front entrance, we were welcomed by a host of men wearing fez caps and traditional Moroccan attire. We had arrived at our singularly opulent destination. Miss Delvey, our host, opted for a tour of the grounds for her and her guests. We proceeded directly, not having any need for keys or a traditional check-in procedure, since our villa was staffed with a full-time butler and, according to our host, all billing had been settled in advance.The vacation was Anna’s idea. She again needed to leave the States in order to reset her ESTA visa, she said. Instead of returning home to Germany, she suggested we take a trip somewhere warm. It had been a long time since my last vacation. I happily agreed that we should explore options, thinking we’d find off-season fares to the Dominican Republic or Turks and Caicos. Anna suggested Marrakech; she’d always wanted to go. She picked La Mamounia, a five-star luxury resort ranked among the best in the world, and knowing that her selection was cost-prohibitive for my budget, she nonchalantly offered to cover my flights, the hotel, and expenses. She reserved a $7,000/night private riad, a traditional Moroccan villa with an interior courtyard, three bedrooms, and a pool, and forwarded me the confirmation e-mail. Due to a seemingly minor snafu, I’d put the plane tickets on my American Express card, with Anna promising to reimburse me promptly. Since I did this all the time for work, I didn’t give it a second thought.Anna also invited a personal trainer, along with a friend of mine—a photographer—whom, at a dinner the week before our trip, Anna had asked to come as a documentarian, someone to capture video. She was thinking of making a documentary about the creation of her art foundation, and she wanted to experience what it felt like to have someone around with a camera. Plus, it’d be fun to have video from the trip, she said. I thought this was a bit ridiculous, but also entertaining, and why not? The four of us stayed in the private villa together. Anna and I shared the largest room.We spent our first day and a half exploring all that La Mamounia had to offer. We roamed the gardens, relaxed in the hammam, swam in our villa’s private pool, took a tour of the wine cellar, and ate dinner to the intoxicating rhythms of live Moroccan music, before capping our night with cocktails in the jazzy Churchill bar. In the morning, Anna arranged for a private tennis lesson. We met her afterward for breakfast at the poolside buffet. Between adventures, our butler appeared, as if by magic, with fresh watermelon and chilled bottles of rosé.Anna was no stranger to decadence. When she returned to N.Y.C. in early 2017, after months away, she checked into 11 Howard, a trendy hotel in SoHo. Her routine dinner spot became Le Coucou, winner of the James Beard Award for best new restaurant that same year, which was on the ground level of her hotel. Buckwheat fried Montauk eel to start and then the bourride: her dish of choice. She befriended the staff, and even the chef, Daniel Rose, who, upon her request, obligingly made off-the-menu bouillabaisse just for her. Dinners were accompanied by abundant white wine.Her days were spent at meetings and on phone calls, often in her hotel. She regularly went to Christian Zamora for $400 full eyelash extensions, or $140 touch-ups here and there. She went to Marie Robinson Salon for color, Sally Hershberger for cuts. She toured multi-million-dollar apartments with over-eager realtors and chartered a private plane for a weekend trip to Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders meeting in Omaha. All things in excess: she shopped, ate, and drank. Usually wearing a Supreme brand hoodie, workout pants, and sneakers, she embodied a lazy sort of luxury.Anna checked into 11 Howard on a Sunday in February and that same day invited me to lunch. She’d texted me occasionally while she’d been gone, excited to get back and eager to catch up. I wondered if she kept in touch with other friends that way. She had a directness that could be off-putting and a sort of comical overconfidence that I found equal parts abhorrent and amusing. She isolated herself, and I felt privileged to be one of the few people whom she liked and trusted. Through past experiences, both personal and professional, I was casually accustomed to the lifestyle and quirks of moneyed people, though I had no trust fund or savings of my own. Her world wasn’t foreign to me—I was comfortable there—and I was pleased that she could tell, that she accepted me as someone who “got it.”I met her at Mamo, on West Broadway. Anna had settled into the L-shaped booth closest to the door. Above her hung an oversize illustration of Lino Ventura and Jean-Paul Belmondo, both holding guns, floating above a dark cityscape. “ASFALTO CHE SCOTTA,” it read, in caps-locked Italian. She had come directly from the Apple Store, where she’d purchased a new laptop and two new iPhones—one for her international number and one for a new local number, she said. She ordered a Bellini, and I followed her lead.When we finally left, it was almost five o’clock. We walked towards Anna’s hotel and she invited me in for a drink. We passed through 11 Howard’s modern lobby, heading straight for the steel spiral staircase to the left, which swooped twice around a thick column, rising to the floor above. On the second level, we entered a large living room called the Library.The room’s design had distinctly Scandinavian overtones. My eyes scanned the setup and paused on a photograph that hung in a frame across from the concierge desk, a black-and-white image of an empty theater—part of a series by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. Light emanated from a seemingly blank, rectangular movie screen, casting its glow out from the center of the composition onto the empty stage, seats, and theater. Sugimoto used a large-format camera and set his exposure to be the full length of a film, hoping to capture a movie’s thousands of still frames within a single image. The result was otherworldly. Looking at his work always reminded me of Shakespeare, a play within a play. It captured kinetic energy, portentous and alive with emotion and light. The viewing experience was meta and inverted: I was the audience, looking into an empty theater, beneath a blank screen. Anything was possible, or maybe it’d already happened. Maybe it was all already there.After that day in February, Anna and I became fast friends. The world was charmed when she was around—the normal rules didn’t seem to apply. Her lifestyle was full of convenience, and its easy materialism was seductive. She began seeing a personal trainer and invited me to join. The sessions were her treat, as she generously insisted that working out was more fun with a friend. We went as frequently as three or four times a week, often ending our sessions with a visit to the infrared sauna.I saw Anna most mornings. During the day, she’d text me frequently. After work, I’d stop by 11 Howard on my walk home. We’d regularly visit the Library for wine before going downstairs to Le Coucou for late dinners.Anna did most of the talking. She held court, having befriended the hotel staff and servers, with me as her trusted adviser and loyal confidante. She would tell me about her meetings with restaurateurs, hedge-fund managers, lawyers, and bankers—and her frustration over delays with the lease signing. (She was set on the Church Missions House.) She mused about chefs she’d like to bring in, artists she esteemed, exhibitions that were opening. She was savvy. I felt a mixture of pity and admiration for Anna. She didn’t have many friends, and she wasn’t close with her family. She said that her relationship with her parents felt rooted more in business than in love. But she was strong. Her impulsivity and a sort of tactlessness had caused a rift between Anna and the friends through whom I’d met her, but I felt that I understood her and would be there for her when others were not.Anna was a character. Her default setting was haughty, but she didn’t take herself too seriously. She was quirky and erratic. She acted with the entitlement and impulsivity of a once spoiled, seldom disciplined child—offset by a tendency to befriend workers rather than management, and to let slip the occasional comment suggesting a deeper empathy. (“It’s a lot of responsibility to have people working for you; people have families to feed. That’s no joke.”) In the male-dominated business world, she was unapologetically ambitious and I liked this about her.She was audacious where I was reserved, and irreverent where I was polite. We balanced each other: I normalized her eccentric behavior, as she challenged my sense of propriety and dared me to have fun. As an added bonus, she paid for everything.It was late on Monday afternoon, after almost two full days in La Mamounia’s walled palace. It was time to venture out. Anna wanted two things: piles of spices worthy of an Instagram photo and a place to buy some Moroccan kaftans. La Mamounia’s concierge arranged everything: within minutes we had a tour guide and set off with a car and driver. Our van came to a stop and we stepped out one by one, fresh from our sheltered resort life, into the dusty warmth of the medina’s mysterious maze.“Can you make this dress, but with black linen?” Anna asked of a woman in Maison Du Kaftan. Before the woman could reply, Anna continued, “I’ll take one in black and one in white linen and, Rachel, I’d love to get one for you.” I scanned the store’s racks as Anna tried on a bright red jumpsuit and a range of gauzy sheer dresses. I tried on a few things but, wary of the iffy fabric content and high prices, I soon joined the videographer and trainer in the shop’s seating area for glasses of mint tea. Anna went to pay. Her debit card was declined.“Did you tell your banks that you were traveling?” I asked. “No,” was her reply. Then I wasn’t surprised that such a purchase would be flagged. Anna asked to borrow money, promising to reimburse me the following week. I agreed, careful to keep track of the receipt. We wandered the medina until dusk. Back in the van, we went directly to La Sultana for dinner. I paid for that, too, adding it to my “tab.”On Tuesday, we were walking through La Mamounia’s lobby, leaving for a visit to the Jardin Majorelle, when a hotel employee waved Anna to a stop. “Miss Delvey, may we speak with you?” he said, as he tactfully pulled her aside. “Is everything O.K.?” I asked, when she rejoined the group. “Yes,” Anna reassured me. “I just need to call my bank.”The next morning, I, too, was stopped as I passed through the lobby: “Miss Williams, have you seen Miss Delvey?” I sent Anna to the concierge. She was agitated by the inconvenience. You could always tell when Anna was agitated: she made almost comical huffy noises (“ugh, why!”) and typed furiously on her phone. She left the villa and came back shortly after, ostensibly relieved that the situation was being resolved.We set off on a day trip to the Atlas Mountains and returned to Marrakech after dinner that same evening, re-entering La Mamounia through the main lobby. Two men stepped forward as Anna approached. They pulled her aside and she sat down to make a call, as the videographer and I lingered awkwardly to the side. (The trainer was sick in bed for the second day in a row.) As we waited, an employee mentioned that someone had been fired because of the trouble with our villa’s payment. A functioning credit card should have been on file before we’d arrived, he explained.The men followed us back to our villa, as Anna spoke clipped phrases into her phone. They stood ominously on the edge of our living room. I offered them chairs, but they declined. I offered them water, smilingly trying to diffuse the tension. They declined. Anna sat in front of them, intensely focused. I excused myself, feeling the embarrassment of the situation, and thinking it best to give Anna some privacy since there was nothing I could do to help.In the morning, I awoke to a text message from the trainer. Still feeling sick, she wanted to go home and needed help making arrangements. She gave me her credit card and I booked a flight. As she packed, I called the concierge to request a car to take her to the airport.Instead of the car, five minutes later the two men from the night prior reappeared in the villa. I left the trainer and went to wake up Anna. She indignantly resumed her post in the living room, cell phone back to her ear. I called the concierge again. “Hi, can you please send that car? No, we’re not all leaving; we have one sick traveler who needs to make her flight. The rest of us are staying.” A car came and the trainer left. The rest of us sat in gridlock.Anna was no longer making calls. She sat there blankly. The men insisted that a functioning card was needed for a block on the reservation’s balance only, not to be charged for the final bill, which could be settled later. First Anna, and then the men, pressured me to put down my credit card for that block while Anna sorted out the situation with her bank. I was stuck. I had exactly $410.03 in my checking account. I had no alternate transportation from the hotel. I wanted to go home. And most importantly, I was told that my card would not be charged.Later that day, when American Express flagged my account for irregular spending activity, I went to the concierge desk to see why the “block” was registering as actual charges. I was told that credits for the same totals would appear in my account. I’ve been to many hotels and was familiar with that process: the way, when you check in, your card is often pre-charged for some amount that’s later credited back to your account. I rationalized this as the same thing. At least I knew Anna was good for the money. I’d seen her spend so much of it. You learn a lot about someone when you travel together.I left Marrakech early the next day, before Anna and the videographer. As I arrived at my destination, I received a text from Anna promising that she’d forward a wire confirmation as soon as possible. She’d checked out of La Mamounia and taken a car to Sir Richard Branson’s Kasbah Tamadot, a destination hotel in the foothills of Morocco’s High Atlas mountains. “I’ll wire you 70,000 [U.S.D.], that way everything’s covered,” she said. I suddenly understood that she intended to leave the hotel charges on my account, to add that amount to the total she owed me from expenses outside the hotel. The balance was more money than I net annually. It suddenly felt like a foregone conclusion.Anna stayed in touch daily, but in the following week I did not receive the wire as I’d been promised. I attributed her delay to disorganization and a failure to grasp the urgency of my situation. I was frustrated, but not surprised by her ineptitude, and I assumed the international wire transfer was just taking longer than expected.Her texts became increasingly Kafka-esque: assurances of incoming reimbursements through varying methods of payment that never materialized. She spun a web of promises that grew increasingly self-referential and complex. I thought there was an issue with her trust-fund disbursement, and I resented her unwillingness to be straight with me.When she got back to New York, she checked into the Beekman. (The Mercer was sold out, she said.) It was comforting to know that she was physically nearby, not far from my office in the World Trade Center. At least I knew where to find her. Bafflingly, she invited me to join our usual visits to the personal trainer. I declined.Seeking reimbursement from Anna became a full-time job. Stress consumed my sleep and fueled my days. My co-workers saw me unravel. I came to the office looking pale and undone.At last, a month after I’d left Marrakech, Anna claimed to have picked up a cashier’s check. She had been upstate dealing with a “work emergency,” but had made it to a bank before closing time and would deposit the check into my account in the morning, she said. This news should have incited a wave of relief, but instead, I remained skeptical.I showed up at the Beekman unannounced the next morning and rang Anna from the concierge desk. She answered, sounding groggy. “Hey, I’m here. What’s your room number?” I asked.Her room was a mess. Papers were everywhere. Her suitcases lay open and overflowing. Her black linen dress from Morocco hung in dry cleaner’s plastic from an open closet door. “Where’s the check?” I questioned, trying to make the transaction simple. She shuffled through piles of papers, looked under clothing, and dumped out various bags before claiming to have left the check in the Tesla she’d driven back from upstate. Of course, it couldn’t be easy. Of course, there was a problem.She called the Tesla dealership, and then her lawyer’s office. (“He must have it,” she said). I refused to leave. Anna said the check would be dropped off, so I waited. I went with her to Le Coucou, where she met with a different lawyer and a private-wealth manager. I followed her back to the lobby in the Beekman, where she ordered oysters and a bottle of white wine. I sat in silence, sending work e-mails from my phone, largely ignoring Anna, but keeping a watchful eye and asking periodically for an update. To prove a point, I stayed until 11 P.M. I left angrily, telling her I’d be back at 8 A.M. so we could go together to the bank. She agreed. “I hope you had fun, at least,” she chirped, with an impish grin. “No, this was not fun. This is not O.K.,” I stammered incredulously.The next morning, I arrived at the hotel on time. Anna was not there. I was livid. Her overt evasion confirmed what I had feared most: Anna was not to be trusted.Finally—why had it taken me so long?—I began to investigate on my own. I reached out to the friends through whom I’d met Anna and was referred to a guy who’d once loaned her money. He was German, like she was, and had known Anna since she lived in Paris. He told me a story that was alarming and reassuring in equal measure. He said that, after weeks of pestering, he had gotten his money back by threatening to involve the authorities, since Anna always maintained she was afraid of being deported. “Her dad is a Russian billionaire,” he said. “He brings oil from Russia to Germany.” The details obviously came directly from Anna, but they didn’t add up—Anna had told me that her parents worked in solar energy. He said that Anna had told him that she received around $30,000 at the start of each month and blew through it, and that she stood to inherit $10 million on her 26th birthday, the previous January, but because she was such a mess, her dad had arranged for the inheritance to be delayed until September of the same year, just a few months away.I knew that something wasn’t right. I searched for a way to reach Anna’s parents, but could find none. On the week of July Fourth, while I was in South Carolina with my family (who knew nothing of the situation), I received a text from the trainer. She told me that Anna was asleep on her couch. Did she not have another place to stay? Two days later, Anna texted me, too, asking if she could stay at my apartment. I said no.A day later, Anna called me crying. “I can’t be alone right now,” she pleaded. I offered to meet at her hotel. “I had to check out. Can I come to you?” she asked. I said no and hung up. Then my conscience got the better of me. I called her back: “You can come by, but you can’t stay here.” She was at my door within the hour. I didn’t have the energy to engage, so I said very little. My tiny studio apartment was in terrible disarray, the physical manifestation of my mental state: piles of papers, boxes, clothing, and stuff. I apologized for the mess. “You don’t need to apologize to me,” she said. She was right. I made a conscious decision to turn the proverbial cheek. I ordered two salads and put on Bridget Jones’s Diary. When she asked to sleep on my couch, I was hardly surprised.ANNA CALLED ME CRYING. “I CAN’T BE ALONE RIGHT NOW,” SHE PLEADED. I OFFERED TO MEET AT HER HOTEL. “I HAD TO CHECK OUT, CAN I COME TO YOU?” SHE ASKED. I SAID NO AND HUNG UP.Even this far down the road, I tried to maintain an optimistic view of the situation: my friend had run into an unimaginable spell of bad luck; any day it would be resolved. This optimism was one of my defining characteristics, an Achilles’ heel. It’s what allowed me to befriend Anna in the first place: a willful suspension of judgment, an earnest filtration that looked for the best in others and excused the worst.Anna could certainly be the worst. At one point, before we left for Morocco, the management at 11 Howard asked Anna to pay for her reservations in advance. She was infuriated by this irregular treatment: “No one else must do that,” she protested. As retribution, she made note of the general managers’ names. Once she checked out, she claimed, she purchased the corresponding Internet domains. She then sent them e-mails to show what she’d done. “I’ll sell them back for a million dollars each,” she told me. This was a trick she’d learned from Martin Shkreli—whom she admired, and even claimed to have met with once or twice. I tried to rationalize her affinity for his antics, even as it made my stomach turn. I’m left to grapple with that in the aftermath.On the first day of August, I walked into a police station in Chinatown. I’d had enough. I told my story to a lieutenant. He fixated on the Morocco aspect of the situation and told me there was an insurmountable jurisdictional issue. “But with your face,” he said, “you could start a GoFundMe page to get your money back.” He suggested I try the civil court. I went outside and sobbed.When I stopped crying, I went straight to the nearby civil court. I found a help center and spoke to a woman through an institutional plexiglas divider before a mousey man in khakis walked me over to his cubicle. I relayed my tale of woe. “Well, gee, I’m kind of jealous that you got to go to Morocco,” he responded. He tried to help by offering pamphlets on pro-bono lawyers and artist-defense leagues, but the money involved surpassed the financial limit dealt with in civil court, he told me. I left feeling distraught.And then came the decisive moment: an episode that unfolded like the climax of a staged drama. Anna reappeared in the lobby of the trainer’s apartment, just as I left civil court. The trainer called me immediately and we decided to confront Anna together. The trainer also invited a friend of hers—someone she thought would be helpful—and the four of us convened at the Frying Pan, a bar on the West Side Highway. Anna was crying behind oversize sunglasses. She was wearing the same dress that she’d worn for weeks (a loan from her night’s stay in the trainer’s apartment). “Have you seen what they’re saying about me?” she whined. Apparently, the night before, an article had come out in the New York Post calling Anna a “wannabe socialite.” She’d stiffed the Beekman for her stay. Her belongings had been detained. She was being charged with several misdemeanor offenses, including an embarrassing dine-and-dash incident.At an outdoor table, surrounded by young professionals boisterously enjoying after-work drinks, the four of us existed in our own little world. “We are here because we want to help you,” the trainer began. “But to do that, we need to hear some truth from you, Anna.” It was the same old song and dance: Anna stuck to her story, claiming that all she’d said was true; nothing was her fault. Anna sat across from me as the women relentlessly pressed for answers, for names, for a way to reach Anna’s family. I said very little as I watched. I seemed to float outside of my body, while tears ran down my cheeks. Against the raised voices and direct accusations, Anna’s face assumed an unsettling blankness. Her eyes were empty. I suddenly realized that I didn’t know her at all. With this epiphany came a sort of release and a strange calmness. I understood the women’s anger and disbelief; I’d had those feelings for months. But I had come through to the other side, and I knew that there was only one answer.The next day, I e-mailed the New York County District Attorney’s Office, linking to an article about Anna: “I think this girl is a con artist,” I wrote. An hour later, my cell phone rang. The caller I.D. read “United States.” I picked up the phone, as I stepped away from my desk. “We think you’re right,” a voice said.An assistant district attorney confirmed that Anna Sorokin (a.k.a. Anna Delvey) was the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation.Anna photographed in Manhattan Supreme Court where she plead not guilty to charges including grand larceny and theft on...Anna photographed in Manhattan Supreme Court where she plead not guilty to charges including grand larceny and theft on October 25, 2017. PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVEN HIRSCH.On the last Wednesday in August, I awkwardly lowered my tote bag to the floor, resting it against the wall, before turning to face the roomful of Manhattan jurors, nearly two dozen faces dotting curved tiers of seating that reminded me of a college classroom. I assumed the position of a professor, though I was hardly fit to teach the group—I, the dupe, the dope, the sorry case. And then I recalled one class I might now be qualified to teach, or at least I could be a guest lecturer, the only one for which I’d received an A+ during my time at Kenyon: “The Confidence Game in America,” an advanced-level English course taught by Lewis Hyde, who’d written a book all about tricksters (Trickster Makes This World). Well, at least the irony was gratifying.I stood behind a small wooden table in the front of the room. The court reporter sat to my left, and an assistant district attorney stood at a podium to my right, next to a projector. The foreperson, a girl about my age, sat in the center of the back row and asked from above, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” I did.I was the victim of alleged grand larceny in the second degree—grand larceny by deception. “How much do you make in a year?” the assistant D.A. asked me. Beside her, on the wall behind my chair, was a projector screen, on which shone a spreadsheet of all the charges on my accounts related to Morocco. The bolded total at the bottom of the display read $62,109.29. “Would you have gone on this trip if you knew that you’d be the one paying?” the attorney continued. The idea was laughable, even while I cried.I wasn’t the only one who’d believed in Anna. At the grand-jury hearing, Anna was indicted on six felony charges and one misdemeanor charge. I realized the scope of her purported deceit as I later read the indictment. She was accused of falsifying documents from international banks showing accounts abroad with a total balance of approximately €60 million. According to a press release from the New York County District Attorney’s Office announcing the indictment, in late 2016, she took these documents to City National Bank in an attempt to secure a $22 million loan for the creation of her art foundation and private club. When City National Bank denied the loan, she showed the same documents to Fortress Investment Group in Midtown. Fortress agreed to consider the loan if Anna provided $100,000 to cover legal and due-diligence expenses.I EMAILED THE NEW YORK DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE: “I THINK THIS GIRL IS A CON ARTIST,” I WROTE. AN HOUR LATER, MY CELL PHONE RANG. THE CALLER ID READ, “UNITED STATES.” I PICKED UP THE PHONE. “WE THINK YOU’RE RIGHT,” A VOICE SAID.On January 12, 2017, almost a month before she returned to New York, Anna secured a $100,000 loan from City National Bank by convincing a bank representative to let her overdraft her account. She allegedly promised the bank that she would wire the funds shortly to cover the overdraft (a familiar tune). She gave the borrowed money to Fortress.In February, when Anna re-entered my life, Fortress had used approximately $45,000 of Anna’s $100,000 deposit and was attempting to verify her assets to complete the loan. At that point, Anna backed out. She told me that her father had gotten wind of the deal and didn’t like the terms. She withdrew herself from consideration and kept the remaining $55,000 from the City National Bank loan, which Fortress had returned. Apparently, that’s how she paid for her lifestyle: 11 Howard, the dinners, personal-training sessions, and shopping.Between April 7 and April 11, Anna allegedly deposited $160,000 in bad checks into her Citibank account and transferred $70,000 from the account before the checks bounced. She never paid Blade for the $35,000 private plane she had chartered to Omaha in May. In August, she opened a bank account with Signature Bank and, according to the indictment, deposited $15,000 in bad checks. She withdrew approximately $8,200 in cash before the account was closed. She was, allegedly, check-kiting.The reality of Anna’s behind-the-scenes dealings, these figures flying from one account to another, remains dizzying to this day—that she was allegedly orchestrating such elaborate schemes while maintaining a believable, surface cool, wielding her debit cards to pay for dinners, workouts, beauty products, and spa treatments. She conjured a glittering, frictionless city—whatever one wanted would be bought, wherever one wanted to go was a cab ride or plane trip away. The audacity of her performance sold itself, until it collapsed under the weight of its own ambition. It’s a part of why I believed her—and continued to believe her: who would think to make up such an elaborate tale, and carry on like this for so long? Who was she? How do you know who anyone is, really? Back on June 9, Anna sent me $5,000 via PayPal. I thought she was stalling, but this gesture tugged at me. Knowing what I know now, why did she give me anything at all? Surely, she would have paid me the full amount if she could have, right?Anna was scheduled to appear in court on September 5, for the misdemeanors that had come out in the news, including her allegedly stolen stay at the Beekman, but she never appeared. I resumed communication with her via text message, not letting on that anything had changed. She had gone to the West Coast and was checked into a rehab in Malibu. In early October, when I was in Beverly Hills for V.F.’s annual New Establishment Summit, Anna and I arranged to have lunch. She never made it. She was arrested in Los Angeles on October 3 and arraigned in a Manhattan court on October 26. She is currently being held without bail on Rikers Island.IT WAS A MAGIC TRICK—I’M EMBARRASSED TO SAY THAT I WAS ONE OF THE PROPS, AND THE AUDIENCE, TOO.Contacted for this article, Anna’s attorney, Todd Spodek, had a much more pedestrian view of matters concerning Anna. “The burden rests squarely with a lender to conduct the appropriate due diligence before extending credit of any type,” he wrote, “and to document the terms of the loan. This is a civil matter, and the appropriate recourse for Ms. Williams is to sue Ms. Sorokin for defaulting on a loan, not to initiate criminal charges. I submit that Ms. Williams does not have an iota of proof to support any agreement, of any type, whatsoever.”Anna told me once that her plans were either going to work out, or all go horribly wrong. Now I see what she meant. It was a magic trick—I’m embarrassed to say that I was one of the props, and the audience, too. Anna’s was a beautiful dream of New York, like one of those nights that never seems to end. And then the bill arrives.CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified the grand-jury hearing at which Anna Sorokin was indicted. It was a hearing, not a trial.

Anna出狱后自己给insider写的稿子，关于自己对Netflix的Inventing Anna的看法和她在狱中生活的情形： Erasing Anna: From ICE detention, Anna Delvey talks about her new Netflix show and life behind barsWhile the world is pondering Julia Garner's take on my accent in "Inventing Anna," a Netflix show about me, the real me sits in a cell in Orange County's jail in upstate New York, in quarantine isolation.I am here because Immigration and Customs Enforcement decided that my early merit release from prison means nothing to them and, despite being perfectly self-sufficient when left to my own (legal) devices, I, in fact, present "a continuous danger to the community." Apparently, Daily Mail headlines are admissible evidence that override the decisions of the New York State Board of Parole and can be used to back up the Department of Homeland Security's arguments that instead of getting a job, I was "busy getting my hair done" — me and my bad ways.While I was in prison, I paid off the restitution from my criminal case in full to the banks I took money from. I also accomplished more in the six weeks they deemed were long enough for me to remain free than some people have in the past two years. My visa overstay was unintentional and largely out of my control. I served my prison sentence, but I'm appealing my criminal conviction to clear my name. I did not break a single one of New York state's or ICE's parole rules. Despite all that, I've yet to be given a clear and fair path to compliance.Did I mention I'm the only woman in ICE custody in this whole jail? Tell me I'm special without telling me I'm special."The court finds that, even if released from detention and ordered to report regularly to ICE, the respondent would have the ability and inclination to continue to commit fraudulent and dishonest acts," an immigration judge ruled. "She clearly possesses the knowledge to do so and has failed to demonstrate remorse." Sorry, am I on trial for this again?So no — it doesn't look like I'll be watching "Inventing Anna" anytime soon. Even if I were to pull some strings and make it happen, nothing about seeing a fictionalized version of myself in this criminal-insane-asylum setting sounds appealing to me.Garner as Sorokin on Rikers Island on "Inventing Anna." Aaron Epstein/NetflixI still remember the night of ABC's "20/20" episode about me in October. It was also unfortunately the night when the meds come really late, so everyone was up waiting and watched it.It's hard to explain what I hate about it. I just don't want to be trapped with these people dissecting my character, even though no one ever says anything bad. If anything, everyone's really encouraging, but in this cheap way and for all the wrong reasons. Like, they love all the clothes and boats and cash tips. I saw only the first couple minutes before I went back into my cell. I was definitely not going to sit there and watch it with everybody. And I don't need any more jail friends, thank you very much.For a long while, I was hoping that by the time "Inventing Anna" came out, I would've moved on with my life. I imagined for the show to be a conclusion of sorts summing up and closing of a long chapter that had come to an end.Nearly four years in the making and hours of phone conversations and visits later, the show is based on my story and told from a journalist's perspective. And while I'm curious to see how they interpreted all the research and materials provided, I can't help but feel like an afterthought, the somber irony of being confined to a cell at yet another horrid correctional facility lost between the lines, the history repeating itself.Admittedly, I, the ultimate unreliable narrator, have made some questionable choices that I wouldn't necessarily repeat today.Do these decisions inevitably make me a permanent threat to public safety? The government says yes.But in comparison with whom? Everything's relative.It makes no sense for me to still be here long after they have brought in and then released numerous violent offenders (robbers, rapists, would-be murderers) and people with an assortment of felony DUIs and grand larcenies. Do they not "clearly possess the knowledge" to recommit the same crimes they've been accused of before, or do different standards apply to them?Meanwhile, I spent another set of holidays followed by a COVID-19-tainted birthday in a depressing cell, which therefore logically categorized me as more dangerous than every single one of those people. In that case, it's totally understandable why I shouldn't be allowed out of my cell for weeks at a time. Who'd want to take the risk?After I finished my prison sentence and left Albion, I thought all this was over, forever, and that I'd never see the inside of another correctional institution again.Shortly afterward, I found myself in the Orange County jail by way of Bergen County Jail, where everything triggers constant flashbacks. Altogether, I've been through seven different facilities for one single case. It's like "Groundhog Day."I never complained about a lot of things. From the very beginning of my journey incarcerated in the state of New York, I thought people just wanted to see me be miserable.The same hand consistently finds its way to your knee, lingers on your calves, grabs your ankles, wrists, waist: cuffs, chains, bruises on the same spots. It's all for the sake of security, of course.Be cool. Don't be annoying. I was considered "not a regular white girl, like the rest of them here." I tried to be a "good sport," and it got me things. Not always but most of the time. Small stuff — enough to be competitive about. I got away with things others didn't. It's not that I wanted their validation. It was more that I didn't want to deal with the consequences of not having it.I didn't say anything when they brought article printouts and tearouts from papers and magazines, in a jail where the New York Daily News is being policed daily and purged of any mentions of Rikers and any of its inmates in "media review."A lot of this nonabuse is subtle, shaped by an understanding that in jail, you are a problem that needs to be dealt with.What you won't see in the Netflix show is my newly acquired habit. I have to methodically bite the skin around my nails until the nail beds slowly fill with blood from both sides, collect at the tip, which I then squeeze until there's enough to drip down the sink of the cell with opaque white-spray-painted windows I spend 91.2% of my day in. Rinse and repeat. It doesn't accomplish anything tangible, other than dulling an obsessive fixation on another wasted day that I'll never get back. And I can't just stop.In jail, I quickly gave up on the concept of privacy. How many people can really say they are fully in control of theirs, anyway?And most importantly — didn't I put myself here?Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, on January 19, I tested positive for COVID-19.I'm sure I'll live, but I haven't been this sick in years.The jail's response to a positive test is to just lock you up. It's convenient for them. It all shall pass, no? The majority of people here quickly caught on and stopped complaining about symptoms out of fear of getting locked in. The staff insists on using the words "medical isolation," even though there's nothing medical about it. One is simply being made to sit in a cell with a hole in the door. This place is like a Petri dish for viruses and bacteria. The only fun is listening to dim-witted sergeants come up with 50 different ways to tell you no.There is always a good reason for everything. They're understaffed and tired, and there is a hundred-day backlog (Of what? No one ever specifies.), which apparently is supposed to be my problem, even though I never asked to be here. I don't recall any delays or backlogs in me getting arrested.I haven't seen a real doctor in over four years. Dismissive nurses who suspect everyone just wants to get high and would do anything to obtain generic meds don't count.It's designed this way, the jail. They take away your choices, and give you the worst, so next time you'll think twice before stabbing your neighbor — or overstaying your visa.During my latest ICE bond hearing, in October, it was the government's burden to prove I would be a danger to my community if I were released.They presented no evidence to demonstrate my alleged insatiable drive for continued criminal exposure. With eight remaining years of parole supervision apparently not being a good enough deterrent, and in absence of anything better, what they did find was an Instagram post from 2018 — an old picture of my friend Neff and me on a rooftop in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, posted by her to my account with the location tagged as "Rikers Island maximum security prison" (which isn't even a thing), as a throwback joke. (Editor's Note: Neffatari Davis is Anna's friend and a consultant on "Inventing Anna," and was extensively quoted in the New York magazine story.)The picture started multiple internal and NYPD investigations, none of which yielded results. I never got as much as a written infraction.It was refreshing to find out that for an agency that thrives on flaunting all kinds of rules, ICE created very few restrictions for its own operations.It's hard to prepare or submit any evidence for the court's consideration when you find out about the hearing 10 minutes before it takes place. Is it fair to call me "unpredictable" if you never gave me a chance to create stability?The most recent twist from ICE is that I've been waiting since November for a decision "to reissue" a letter that never arrived here. It should be an easy thing to determine considering all my mail is being logged. Who knows how much longer it will take to think this over — a month, six months, a year?Such decisions can't be rushed. And as long as the threat to public safety is secured in a cell, who cares?Many of the inmates here don't speak a word of English but are released into the community without as much as an ankle bracelet or token bail. I'm genuinely glad for them. The majority I've encountered seem like kind and well-meaning people who happen to have made a couple of mistakes. But I doubt any of them meet the standards of financial stability and property ownership ICE has used to keep me in here.Most Americans think of Mexico when they hear "ICE." No wonder — the mainstream media is flooded with news where Immigration and Customs Enforcement is mentioned mainly in the context of deportations and detentions of minorities.During my time in this jail (where I'm in general population with others who are in regular criminal proceedings), I've learned that most people don't even realize ICE deals with every immigrant, not just enforcement of the southern border. I've heard numerous variations of, "I didn't realize you were Mexican. You really can't tell!" and, "It's crazy that they can hold you for this long, and you aren't even from Mexico."The revelation that you didn't have to be Hispanic to have all kinds of problems with ICE seemed to register as genuine surprise.Some go a step further and offer friendly advice: "Did you know there's an office in the city where you can renew your visa? Did you ask your lawyer?" Yes, and then I kind of got arrested at that office.Will I forever be judged by my early-to-mid 20s? Is there anything else I could possibly have done to close this chapter?Will I forever be stuck in a past not entirely of my creation without getting a chance to move on?

评判安娜索沃金不是一件容易的事情。

评判任何人都不是一件容易的事情。

或者说，上天从未赋予过我们这种权利。

我们可以因为安娜伪造了她的身份而很轻易地将她的所作所为定义为诈骗，但是这样的评价同样可以被很轻易地推翻。

因为“身份”本来就是被创造的：父母构造了它，家族构造了它，我们出生的地方，我们的教育背景，我们居住的街道，我们所处的社会，他人对我们的认识，我们对自己的认识。

而当安娜自己完成了这一切时：她用语言塑造了一个无所不在、无所不能的父亲，构造了一个神秘富有、来自异国的家族，重新加工美化了她年少的移民经历和居住环境，运用从时尚杂志里接触到的艺术知识包装自己的教育背景，然后利用这些建立了那些名流们对她的认知，从而不断加固她对自己“构造”的新“身份”的认同。

可以说，安娜构造了一个社会，一个只属于她自己，只关于她自己的社会，就像她那位“科技家”男友说的那样：when a person dream, it’s a dream ,when people dream, it’s the reality. 这位男友并没有将他的构想变成事实，但有趣的是，安娜记住了这句话并且make it come true. 安娜把她脑海里对自己的构想变成了所有人认识并承认的事实，她个人传奇的经历完全可以成为这句话的完美注解。

我们不可能不对此感到惊奇，没有人能够在听到这些之后不提出那个问题：“她是怎么做到的！

” 我们无法真正探寻他人的内心世界，但我们可以通过剧中给出的信息猜测，那可能只有一个答案：信念。

“信念”这个词在现在这个社会已经逐渐和“成功”捆绑在了一起，就像那些富商在他们的演讲里说的那样，强大的信念会引导人们最终走向成功。

安娜也不例外。

我们如果想解读安娜，就必须先理解她对“成功”的渴望。

剧中的安娜一直有一个痛点，是她绝不承认和妥协的，那就是将她的所作所为定义为诈骗。

她说她宁可死在监狱里也拒绝向公众承认自己是个为了奢华生活而骗取他人钱财的骗子。

她始终坚信自己的AFD会是全世界最顶尖的艺术俱乐部，她会成为一个建造全球艺术顶峰殿堂的女企业家，她注定与众不同，注定要让她的名字成为纽约的传奇。

或许的确如此，她天生不同，拥有非凡的眼光和使他人信任的能力，她的话语仿佛具有某种令人眩晕的魔力，令她周围的人无一不陷入她所构建的美梦漩涡里。

不论男女，无论老少。

人人都曾认为自己生而不凡，但我们并不具备那种支撑自己这种想法的能力。

然而安娜不同，她的能力就是她相信自己与众不同的佐证，并且一直被佐证。

她想到什么，她就去实施它，可巧的是，她总能得到她想要的结果，仿佛世界听命于她。

这种能力与幸运交织的错觉好像一只无形的推手，推动她一步步逼近幻梦崩塌的那一天。

那么安娜想要的成功是什么呢？

ADF俱乐部究竟是什么呢？

她为什么会觉得这个俱乐部的建成就是她想要的成功？

即便安娜不断否认她利用他人钱财维持自己奢华享受的指控，她对奢侈生活的迷恋和追求也是无可回避的事实，这也是她最初踏上这条浮华的原因。

对于一个自命不凡的人来说，区别于普通人的奢靡生活是最好也是最简单的证明。

剧里安娜第一次见到薇薇安时，她不断强调她需要一个正式的媒体探访，一个区别于其他人的探视方式，一间单独房子，一张不设隔板的桌子。

这一切都是为了彰显她的特别。

她告诉薇薇安，这个世界上到处都有隐形的VIP通道，找到它们就可以到达任何想去的地方。

精致的打扮，设计好的谈吐，都是进入这个通道的凭证。

她可以为这份凭证随时做好准备，即便身处牢狱，也能保证每天的衣着搭配和发型。

安娜窥见到了这个世界得以运转的另一面，一个隐藏在规则之下的规则，她找到了开启这个秘密世界的钥匙，这就是她征战这个世界的秘密武器，在我们看来，她从此所向披靡，无往不利。

而当我们把目光转向她费尽一切想要到达目的地时，我们还是会感到困惑。

安娜所有的努力都是为了成功地建造她梦想中的顶尖俱乐部：ADF，一个以她的名字命名的消费殿堂。

安娜用了很多精美的图片和雄阔的语言去描绘这个她无比渴望的作品，但事实上，这就是一个高端的消费的场所。

先锋意义的艺术品，花费无数工时的华服，汇聚世界食材的高档餐厅，豪华泳池和休闲设施，安娜把这些称为“艺术”。

而对普通人来说，这是一个大把金钱流动和蒸发的地方，这是一个用无尽物欲填补内心空虚的巴比伦花园。

而安娜把这一切认为是，成功。

她在不断追寻这样的生活，她认识了需要这种生活的人群，然后她找到了会支持这种生活的人群。

因此安娜一定会出现，安娜一定要成功，安娜一定会成功。

打入上流社会对于安娜这样出身普通的人群来说是她实现成功最快捷的方法，而变得“有名”对于安娜来说又是融入上流社会最快速的方法。

因此“有名”就成了安娜最执着的方向。

在她混迹于名流社交活动时，她伪造神秘的富二代身份并用具有技巧性的谈话吸引目标人物的注意力，而当她锒铛入狱时，她又需要媒体对她的无限度曝光来达到在普通人中人尽皆知的目的。

她清醒地知道，只有赢得他人对自己的认可与尊重才是维持奢华生活的长久保障，所以她既不会轻易地投入任何一个富商的怀抱使那些合作方就此轻视她，也绝对不会承认自己的事业是一个虚幻的骗局以至于失去大众对她的支持和好奇。

回观安娜的每一步，她大胆又谨慎，执着又冒险，她几乎具备一个创业家所必备的特质。

她有最能适应现在这个社会的品质，像这个时代教导我们的那样，野心勃勃，不放过任何一个机会，敏锐地感知圈层的流动，聪慧地洞悉那些人心和规则的空隙，在这个惊险的地雷游戏里活跃地如鱼得水。

最重要的，她始终铭记社会教给她的最重要的一点：成功。

当薇薇安作为一个记者，刨根问底地想要找出造就安娜的人物、经历和转折点时，她找不到答案。

安娜说，她一直如此。

薇薇安曾经以为，或许是流言里安娜背景非凡的父母造就了她，或许是校园里不知名的霸凌事件造就了她，或许是潜藏在资料里被人忽略的某个细节造就了她，甚至怀疑过是自己的报道让安娜在媒体的推动下变成了一个可怕又冷漠的怪物。

但是她最终找到的答案是那样苍白无力、普通寻常：没有人，没有事件，安娜生而如此。

在当下的社会，人的成长不再只来自于父母的言传身教。

海量的信息把我们包围，往往我们还未来得及分辨这波浪潮，下一轮浪潮就已经到来。

有的人也许还在吃力地挣扎在海面上，企望获得一瞬间的喘息，有的人已经放弃了呼吸，就此下潜，顺着最深的洋流，沉溺在信息的海洋里。

安娜就是不断下潜的那个人，她比大多数下潜者都更有力量，更有毅力，她接近了那个海底的亚特兰蒂斯，却在看清这个骗局的前一刻耗尽了最后一口氧气。

同处于这片浩瀚的海洋，不难理解为什么安娜的辩护律师会说每个人心里都有一个安娜。

没有人能说自己不向往成功，但是当我们像追问安娜的追求那样去追问自己时，很难说我们得到的答案是不是和安娜追求的ADF俱乐部一样虚无。

艾伦第一次出场，坐在美术馆里面对的那幅画，跟机械姬里的那幅画很像，都是滴画，应该是杰克逊·波洛克的作品，被称为无意识绘画。

此时的艾伦已经知道自己被骗了，而且沦为安娜的工具，对于自己在工作上表现出的无意识应该是无比懊恼。

艾伦认识安娜之前只是个无聊的律师，按部就班，生活像上了发条一样准确无误，此时的艾伦在工作上是清醒的，但是在生活上是无意识的。

在安娜举办的第一次派对上，他把维特鲁威人说成是米开朗基罗的作品，应该是从没有关心过艺术吧。

而之后的艾伦重焕新生，即便知道自己被骗之后，依然会去逛美术馆，安娜虽然骗了他，但是也赋予了他新的生活意识。

从这一点上来看，安娜的确对周围的人有巨大的影响力。

昨晚看完的，今早醒来的时候，剧情都不能挥散而去。

清晨的冥想中也常常走神，跳进剧里那些吵闹的人物里，好几次几乎要睡着或陷入混沌的意识了。

先评价一下这部剧，配乐很赞，拍摄的方式和叙述时间线也还行，但是演员令我很不适。

Viv的演员表情太夸张了，把情绪失控演得太过火，每次看她演生气或无措，我都想把自己戳瞎。

Anna的演员总体来说演技还行，但也令人不舒服。

比如眼睛忽然反复快速闭合，再配合过度的断句障碍，以显示自己的慌张，这样的动作并不自然。

慌张的表现形式可以有很多种，但她的表达还是有些拙劣。

Rachel的演员，不知道为什么，长得就是很让人讨厌，我甚至觉得她并不适合演这个角色。

Kathy和Val是其中为数不多的我挺喜欢的演员和角色。

当然这些比较具有个人色彩的偏好，不再赘述。

我们再谈一下剧情部分。

整个故事的发展只有刚开头到Val的故事线结束前还有些意思，但后面就越来越烂，没有展现出Anna的聪明才智，反而更凸显她的奢侈无节制、小聪明、Pua等。

Anna的人物设定是很棒的：business woman, smart, art taste, talented and beautiful…但问题就是，剧里在这些地方的塑造不够深刻立体，更流于肤浅。

然而，在其它方面也有可圈可点的地方。

Anna父母这条线很重要。

她的母亲说Anna is like a stranger to us, she always beyond us. sometimes you have to accept you might have a child who is not your soul.而她的父亲谢绝出席Trail，这里才能更完整地展示给大家为什么Anna是我们看到的Delvey（假名），而不是索罗金（真名）。

她很擅长让别人关心她，其实她身上不仅有那种可以感染他人的热情与奋斗精神，还有无数人可以与之共情的底层身份。

一次次跨越需要的是极大的勇气和智慧，这让大家想到自己，或是与之共情，或是真心欣赏。

当然，她的名媛人设立不住脚时，一定会遭到上流社会的唾弃和排挤。

上层接受不了这种屈辱，尤其是被一个25岁的年轻lady玩弄于股掌之间。

他们是讲究血脉和尊严的，即资产需要共识的通行证。

Anna身上诸多矛盾的特质实在不能单一来判断。

她的很多行为包括言语和骗子毫无二异，她把世界真正当作一个游戏舞台，靠信念支撑。

你可以说她是传销头目、PUA大师，但标签容易把人简化。

我们同样需要注意到的是，她从小的生活环境无法满足她，带着梦想离开德国来到美国时，她初尝了名利场的甜味，那里有她享受的一切，并且她的确很擅长斡旋其间、绽放其间。

不管是男友为她买单还是其它上流为她买单，不可否认的一点是她的生活方式的确一直很奢侈，甚至带有挥霍的味道。

为什么需要挥霍？

不同阶段有不同的含义。

她喜欢把自己丢进一个曾经无法企及的世界里尽情狂欢，却又没有任何理财能力，这时候商业头脑哪里去了？

破绽还有很多。

真正的名媛往往是低调的，不会炫耀。

为什么？

她们早就习惯了这样的生活方式，这对她们来说是自然而然，像吃喝拉撒一样，没什么好强调的或昭告天下的。

Anna却反复强调自己要继承的信托基金。

人越是匮乏什么，越是要一遍遍强调它，不仅是说给别人听、渴望得到别人的认同，更是用来说服自己的。

当她收到Alan的短信说银行明天会去德国亲自跟她父亲交谈相关事宜的时候，就在那一刻是彻底崩塌的起点。

她意识到这一切都不可能了。

她在构建的新世界、新身份都基于她力图让别人相信的信念——我的父亲很富有。

在新身份里待久了，她太沉迷于这场游戏，很难说服自己“这个游戏结束了，你现在需要出来”。

她不愿意认输，她极度渴望成功、权力、金钱，她想通过这些再重塑游戏规则，全部投入到艺术领域进行游戏，她坚信自己会大放异彩。

重点是，其他人也信了，那么多人都信了，这些对此深信的人物里不乏大咖和名流们。

可是，现在Anna要告诉自己游戏结束了，她能接受吗？

人坚持一件事情太久，就会变为执念，甚至偏执。

她当然不接受这样的惨败，毕竟只欠东风，但此时此刻她无能为力。

于是她堕落、她更甚一步。

这之后发生的种种，开始成为真正的行骗。

在此之前，还不能完全单一的评价。

剧情的漏洞有很多，诸如在Anna身上有那么多破绽和谜团的时候，为何名流们依然轻易相信Anna等等，即使存在一定的合理性，但故事的细节没有达到足够的合理性。

这些也不再深究。

总之，在消沉了一段时间以后，Anna仍不放弃，先是跑到LA，后是为了拖延签证到期想办法把自己送进康复酒店等等，这表明她依然存有梦想成真的幻想。

即使到这种时候，她还是没有放弃。

这种精神大家可以自行解读，我不做评判。

你可以说她对梦想充满热忱，你也可以说她就是一个自大的偏执狂。

Anyway, 我最痴迷的是她和Rachel不同的身份视角。

你可以说Rachel具有普通人的某种“特权”，这让她看起来好像受害者。

但不得不承认的是，至少在摩洛哥，Anna的确骗了她，一开始是抱持着自己的loan会获批的心情在骗，虽然有些疑惑和不安，但此时她并不真的觉得自己会失去支付能力。

那时候，她仍然以为自己最终会支付的。

但是Alan的消息彻底破灭了她的期待和信念，她明知道自己无法支付账单的时候，还在继续嘴硬地圆谎，不肯告诉任何人实情，这之后她对Rachel索要汇款的行为总是忽视、冷漠和嘲讽，而且一面利用自己可能自杀的理由想赖在Kathy家，一面又无比自私、丑恶地对待Kathy在乎的男人。

她对Rachel好还是不好呢？

毕竟做朋友的两年多，全是Anna买单，不管是衣服、鞋子、造型、桑拿、健身还是美食等等。

Rachel要离开摩洛哥的时候，她是有些害怕的，她那时很清楚自己什么也没有。

看着正在收拾行李的Rachel，Anna歇斯底里地说，他们应该派私人飞机来送你回去，别担心，我会安排这一切。

不知道是真打电话还是假的，她一边哭一边说，“为什么不行，你必须派私人飞机.....”话还没说完，Rachel就离开了。

Anna和chase分开的时候，说过：“I like being alone." 但后面的故事线恰恰证明了她其实很需要别人，她很需要关心。

Anna通过近乎挥霍的方式在给予，试图以这种方式来获取关心、获取欣赏和崇拜。

她享受并且喜欢那种无所不能的感觉。

在给予的过程中，Anna觉得自己可以实现任何事情，这也赋予她做梦的快感。

一个人庆祝梦境是孤独的、冷清的、不够真实的，一群人庆祝梦境则是热闹的、更加具体的、确切的，仿佛可以掌控的。

但狂欢的本质，依然是孤独，是担心不被认同，是深层的自卑。

从她和律师的对话，她和记者的对话中，我们都可以看见认同对于她的重要意义。

她宁愿坐牢也不肯让全世界认为她只是一个愚蠢的拜金女。

但恐怕Anna自己都没认清自己到底是什么，真正需要什么。

出名真的是她想要的吗？

不，她需要强烈的认同。

你可以说她是自恋，需要别人像奴隶一样无条件崇拜她。

但，我们不可否认的是，她的家庭彻底”驱逐“了她，拒绝承认她的存在。

即使在拘留期间，她依然肆无忌惮地索取，这次要杂志，下次要名牌内裤。

除了显而易见的贪得无厌以外，还有更深层的原因。

她不会表达内心深处的诉求。

她不懂得如何表达自己的真心。

不在意、不在乎是她的自我保护机制，这样才能更好地存活。

其实，从她接到Rachel电话的欣喜和含泪对Viv说“pls say you will visit"，甚至第一次改掉防御的动作，主动把手伸出去够Viv的手心，都在表明她很在乎也很需要爱。

人都是复杂的。

Rachel打电话给Anna，并且和警察联手逮捕了她，这很令人不耻对吗？

可是，她几个月以来的持续煎熬，甚至在老板提出Anna是在诈骗她的时候，她断然否认并拒绝报警。

除了的确相信安娜具备偿还能力之外，她难道对Anna没有任何友谊的在乎吗？

不是的。

她是在乎Anna，并且真心想关心她，在摄像师提议离开摩洛哥时，她首先想到的是”我不能把安娜一个人丢下“，但她是一个世俗的普通人，她无法爬到道德的高峰。

真正开始下定决心不再在意Anna，是从Anna穷尽恶毒词汇相向，并且以去洗手间为借口逃跑开始的。

世界上有多少纯正的圣人呢？

这世界都不是非黑即白，更不用说复杂的人性了。

穷人想摇身一变成为富人，靠伪装能实现吗？

本世纪最知名的骗子之一，安娜.索罗金（Anna Sorokin）告诉你，她可以用“空城计”解锁“上流社会”的通关密码。

无学历、无工作、无家底，她是如何骗过那些人精中的人精的？

一、空城计的胜利

2014-2017年，安娜混迹于纽约曼哈顿，行事作风非常“old money”,入住高档酒店、出入高级餐厅、给服务员的小费都是100美元起的。

小费给的大方，带来的便利是，酒店工作人员，把她作为超级VIP，她的消费大多数都在酒店范围内，房费、餐费她都记账上，工作人员都不敢得罪她，一日不催，帐就可以一日记着，等到实在赖不过了，她就以“家族信托经理正在处理汇款”为由，来为“刷不了的信用卡”正名。

*安娜在2017年2月入住这家位于纽约苏荷区的酒店「11 Howard Hotel」，并在这里积累了约3万美元的账单。

还与酒店的礼宾员Neffatari Davis建立了友谊。

此外，安娜还曾在其他酒店留下过足迹，例如The Mercer、The Beekman、W New York Union Square等。

家族？

什么家族呢？

她声称是拥有6000万信托基金的德国女继承人，与人交谈时总带着部分“精英般的傲慢”。

加上身着名牌，品味不俗，可以在画廊精准评点艺术家的市场价值，也能在米其林餐厅从容讲述三文鱼产地的差异，还能在品鉴红酒时用“单宁结构”代替”酸涩感”，选择服饰时恪守“隐奢主义”法则，简单而高级的道理，她掌握得透透的。

这种逆向操作的“凡勃伦效应”成功塑造了“真正老钱”的形象。

正如社会学家布迪厄在《区分》中指出的，上层阶级的消费从来不是功能性的，而是符号性的。

*凡勃伦效应：是指消费者对一种商品的需求程度会因其标价较高而不是较低而增加的现象。

这一效应最早由美国经济学家索尔斯坦·凡勃伦提出，用以描述上层社会对奢侈品的需求，尤其是那些价格高昂、展示财富和地位的物品。

这一套，在见惯了大人物的高档酒店很好用，在功利又浮华的上流阶层更是行得通。

安娜想要靠着良好的人脉获取资源，那些“人脉”又何曾不将安娜视为“发发发”的渠道呢？

那些想要钓“金龟婿’的“拼单名媛们”、靠穿伪劣名牌、打造白富美形象，红极一时的韩国宋智雅，可都不是她的对手。

靠着“假装”行骗的“最高境界”是，连骗子本人都入戏了。

由于她的故事太过吸睛抓马，嗅觉敏锐的网飞，花了32万美元买下故事版权，改编成2022年的剧集《虚构安娜》。

该剧一上线，就成为上线28天内收视率最高的英文电视剧。

接下来，我将结合剧集《虚构安娜》以及“真实安娜”出狱后，愈发“精彩”的故事，来和大家一起探讨一下，为什么穷变富的戏码，永远都有“买家”与“观众”？

二、皇帝的新衣

好 品 味 首先，安娜的好品味是真有，真实的安娜.索罗金，1991年出生于俄罗斯的一个普通家庭，父亲是卡车司机，母亲为家庭妇女。

2007年，他们移民了德国的一个农村小镇，从小热爱艺术与时尚的安娜，后来甚至考上了伦敦中央马丁学院。

但不到一年，她就主动退学了。

中央马丁学院，什么概念呢？

它是全球四大时装学院之一，英国最顶尖的艺术与设计学院之一，培养出过很多名人。

在这里，安娜切身见到了很多来自“上流社会”的人。

但不到一年，安娜就退学了。

她的目标，是快速挣到“大钱”。

在安娜看来，纽约曼哈顿，才是适合她的“归属地”，因为那里，是全球顶级财富、文化与精英汇聚的核心，也是“世界的焦点”。

智 商 高 其次，聪明的脑子她也有 ，只是没用在正途上。

2016年，安娜宣称要创办自己的艺术基金会，ADF（Anna Delvey Foundation），计划租下公园大道281号，一座位于纽约的六层高、占地约4180平方米（约45,000平方英尺）的历史建筑，以此为由，与多位知名艺术家和建筑师合作，打造了一个看似强大的创业团队。

安娜认识了一位资深的地产律师，安德鲁·兰斯（Andrew Lance），剧集《虚构安娜》中将其角色化名为“艾伦·里德（Alan Reed）”，但现实中的兰斯背景更为显赫，曾被誉为“纽约最佳律师之一”。

*安德鲁·兰斯（Andrew Lance）是纽约著名律所 Gibson Dunn & Crutcher 的合伙人，专攻房地产和金融领域的法律事务。

现实中的兰斯背景更为显赫，兰斯曾多次被《钱伯斯美国法律指南》（Chambers USA）、《法律500强》（Legal 500）等权威法律评级机构评为“纽约顶尖房地产律师”，并参与过多起高净值交易。

安娜凭借着“old money”风的举止装扮和虚假的财务文件，就让这位久经沙场、阅历丰富的行家，相信了她的鬼话，并说服其为她担保贷款。

兰斯自身也是有目的的，是为了赚取丰厚的咨询费。

拿 捏 人 性不得不说，安娜对人性的拿捏简直登峰造极，仿佛她能洞悉每个人内心深处的弱点与渴望，巧妙编织谎言，让身经百战的老将也落入彀（gòu）中。

2016年11月，安娜向纽约国家城市银行(City National Bank)提交了一份伪造文件，文件中显示她在瑞士的账户里有6000万欧元，并申请了2200万美元的贷款。

但被拒绝了。

道 德 感 低一个月之后，她又向峰堡投资集团(Fortress，也称堡垒投资集团)提交同份文件，申请3000万美元贷款，峰堡投资集团要求安娜提供10万美元，用于支付法律和调查费用。

安娜转头又向纽约国家银行申请透支账户，国家城市银行给了她10万美元的贷款。

她立刻打给了峰堡。

当峰堡试图去瑞士调查她资产的时候，安娜心虚地取消了贷款。

峰堡扣除手续费，将剩余的5.5美元退回给安娜。

更为夸张的是，她靠着忽悠，竟然免费搭乘了一辆私人飞机，她说她要去参加巴菲特也要参加的盛会（*2017年5月的内布拉斯加州奥马哈行业盛会），并伪造了一张3.54万美元的德意志银行的电汇单给美国包机运营商。

工作人员没有当场查验，因为公司CEO与安娜有交集，他们相信安娜是富家千金。

毕竟，谁也不会怀疑和巴菲特一同参加盛会的“贵宾”，会赖掉飞机的租赁费吧？

看破上流社会的伪善但我们反过来想，安娜用魔幻般的演技，撕开了上流社会的华丽帷幕。

暴露了精英阶层的认知悖论：他们宁愿相信一个貌似拥有大量继承资产的骗子，也不愿花时间精力去了解或质疑自己也无从打包票的身份、术语、背景、虚名……更不愿去刺破，能让“钱生钱”的虚妄机会。

大多数人都没能搞清楚这一点，安娜能打入上流社会，并不是靠虚构的信托遗产。

记者杰西卡·普雷斯勒（Jessica Pressler），揭露了安娜从普通女孩到成为纽约派对中的常客，再到等待审判全过程，2018年5月，她在《纽约》杂志发表报导。

（*报导名称《也许她有那么多钱，只是一时想不起来了》）

其中有句话是这样说的：“如果你用亮闪闪的东西、大量的现金、财富的象征吸引人们的注意力，他们几乎无法看到其他任何东西。

”安娜骗局的成功密码，在于对精英阶层认知体系的精准解构。

彼时还不到26的安娜，深谙的“上流社会的语言系统”，清楚的“混迹上流阶层的行为准则”。

简单概括来说，就是：外在的形象与品味、社交礼仪、人脉资源、专业素养、保持神秘感、保持低调奢华，以及最核心的一点，拿捏人性弱点。

这些，安娜都做到了，这才是最难的。

利用他们的“功利又浮华”，来获取自身的“功利与浮华”。

混迹上流阶层的行为准则通常可以概括为以下几点：注重形象与品味、掌握社交礼仪、利用人脉资源、展示专业素养、保持神秘感、保持低调奢华、拿捏人性弱点。

之后，安娜邀请好友瑞秋（*《名利场》杂志主编）、私人教练以及摄像师共四人，安排了一场摩洛哥的旅行，想要拍摄一部关于自己创建基金会的纪录片。

但到度假的最后一天，她的信用卡又被说无法付款，瑞秋被迫承担了这笔6.2万美元的帐单（PS：这超过了她当时一年的工资）。

后来为了追回款项，瑞秋报警，与此同时，包机公司报警，多家酒店（11 Howard Hotel、The Mercer、The Beekman、W New York Union Square等）指控她恶意拖欠住宿费，加上银行对她恶意欺诈提起的诉讼， 同一时间，安娜被多方“追击”，于2017年7月，被捕。

2019年被判处重大盗窃在内的8项罪名，包括伪造文件、从多家金融机构盗取了27.5万美元等，后被判处4-12年监禁，以及罚款赔偿金审判费用等一共29.8万美元。

三、审判剧场

很多人都是通过她把庭审现场“变成时装秀”认识她的。

当安娜身着圣罗兰（Yves Saint Laurent）、miumiu、MK等时装出现在法庭时，这场诈骗案已演变为“行为艺术’。

她雇佣了麦当娜雇佣过的造型师打造“监狱时尚”，将庭审变成个人秀场。

加上记者杰西卡文章的推波助澜，安娜一度，成为美国最知名的骗子。

从“假名媛”真正变成了“真网红”。

安娜非常懂得如何将污名转化为资本。

在狱期间，她将作的画标价每幅1万美元出售，她还与“监狱文化”（Prison Culture）组织联合举办了自己的首届艺术展，在纽约市公共酒店举行，整场画作价值预估在40-50万美元之间。

截至2022年12月，她通过出售美术作品获得了约34万美元的收入。

前面我们也提到了，嗅觉敏锐的网飞，花了32万美元买下她故事版权。

2021年2月，安娜服刑近4年，因为表现良好获假释，出狱后，她就住进了高档酒店，还雇了专业团队跟拍记录自己的生活。

几周之后，因为签证逾期，她被相关部门拘留了。

2022年10月，移民法官批准安娜保释出狱，保释条件是缴纳1万美元保释金，进行24小时居家软禁并禁止使用社交媒体。

2024年8月，解除社交媒体限制后，安娜在Instagram上的粉丝数，迅速增长。

短短15天，她的粉丝数就达到了112万。

可见，人们对她的故事和形象，饱含了很高的关注度。

安娜做人确实不厚道，但黑红文学她是玩得一套一套的。

2023年，安娜和57岁的传奇时尚公关凯利·库特罗尼（Kelly Cutrone）合伙，开了一家时尚公关公司OutLaw Agency。

还受邀参加了美国广播公司（ABC）的老牌真人秀节目《与星共舞》，许多媒体和公众认为，节目邀请安娜参加是对她过去犯罪行为的美化。

《纽约邮报》甚至称，这是“流行文化的新低谷”。

*安娜·索罗金于 2024年9月17日参加了《与星共舞》第33季的首播。

通过出售狱中画作、成立公司、参加节目、售卖故事，安娜成功将自己转化为消费主义时代的文化符号。

这种差异凸显了社交媒体时代的游戏规则变迁：犯罪叙事正在被娱乐工业收编为新型生产资料。

果然，现实永远比戏剧更荒诞，当人们从一开始对安娜“为何可以欺骗那么多人”的好奇，转变为被“黑红营销”吸粉，乃至到推崇时，这种荒诞现象印证了鲍德里亚的拟像理论——真实的诈骗案被媒介重构为消费符号，公众在道德审判与审美崇拜的撕裂中完成集体狂欢。

四、欲望迷城安娜出狱后的"成功"映射着这个时代的价值错位：她在INS晒出脚铐镶钻照片获赞百万，诈骗经历被包装成"寒门逆袭神话"。

这种扭曲的偶像化过程，本质是晚期资本主义的文化并发症。

当马斯洛需求金字塔被重构为"社交认证—流量变现—资本积累"的新秩序，道德评判标准在算法推荐中不断失焦。

那个曾经揭穿皇帝新衣的孩子，如今自己穿上了更精致的伪装。

我们不知道的是，这个世界还能“癫”成什么样子？

莱昂纳多在《猫鼠游戏》中，也饰演过一个假冒身份的诈骗犯，弗兰克·阿巴内尔。

影片里，当弗兰克将自己聪明的大脑用在“规则之内”时，他仅用两周就通过律师考试了。

《猫鼠游戏》的弗兰克，给出的另一种答案是：他在退出骗局后，成为了联邦政府的安全顾问。

电影是根据真实故事改编的，这个现实中的支票诈骗犯，最终也选择与FBI合作开发防伪技术。

*影片改编自小弗兰克·阿巴内尔（Frank Abagnale Jr.）的自传《有本事来抓我：一个诈骗犯令人惊异的真实故事》。

事实证明，聪明的大脑完全可以正大光明地帮你挣到钱。

这种“转型”不是妥协，而是对真实价值的重估——从伪造支票到保护金融系统，他将天赋重新锚定在创造而非破坏。

相比之下，安娜在出狱后加速冲向流量漩涡，两者的分野揭示了欺骗者的终极困境：是继续活在楚门的世界，还是在破碎的镜像中重建自我。

当她穿着定制时尚服装站在假释法庭上，与穿着囚服在牢房画画时，哪个才是真实的她？

当我们不再把名牌服装当作阶级通行证，当品红酒回归到品尝本身，当艺术评论不必夹杂投资术语，或许就能理解《瓦尔登湖》的真谛：真正的奢侈，是保有完整而不需要证明的自我。

回归现实生活里，很多真正的old money们正在回归本质。

用帆布包，坐地铁，穿着朴素，过着“去符号化”的生活，这其实代表着一种选择的自由，一种精英阶层的认知进化：当身份焦虑转化为存在自觉，外在符号就让位于内在价值。

这种转变呼应着海德格尔的“诗意的栖居”——从“拥有”到”存在”的维度跃迁。

*海德格尔认为，“诗意的栖居”并非仅仅是物质上的富足或外在的奢华，而是一种对存在本质的深刻理解和体验。

这种体验超越了物质的拥有，指向一种更加本质、更加纯粹的存在方式。

那些仍在复制安娜路径的后来者应该明白：欺骗游戏终会落幕，但自我欺骗的代价更为昂贵。

正如荣格所说：“向外张望的人在做梦，向内审视的人，才是清醒的。

”我们生命中的每一刻，都在向我们的灵魂注入某种品质，问题是我们要注入真理还是幻象？

从这个意义来说，安娜从未真正离开过监狱——她精心构筑的人设牢笼，远比铁窗更能禁锢灵魂的自由。

“安娜们”终会发现，虚假人设是当代最昂贵的奢侈品，它需要终生按揭，且永远无法真正拥有。

于我们每个人，只有当认清自我身份，明确自我真正需求时，才能让内心的欲望，真正落地。