‘True, apart from the made-up bits’: why people are lining up to sue over Netflix portrayals
A lot of fun can be had messing about with the familiar disclaimer that pops up on the screen before a television drama or film begins.
One impish recent line, displayed at the start of each episode of Inventing Anna, the Netflix show about Anna Sorokin (also known as Anna Delvey), the fake heiress, reads: “This whole story is completely true. Except for the parts that are completely made up.”
It is a trick that is by now almost a cinematic cliche, with notable examples including the words that open the apocalyptic 1964 comedy, Dr Strangelove. “It is the stated position of the United States Air Force that their safeguards would prevent the occurrence of such events as are depicted in this film,” director Stanley Kubrick’s audience is informed.
Yet even a heavily fictionalised, improbable story can be judged to have
