The “spectacular grift” documentary is a subgenre of the (particularly Netflix) true crime genre that is threatening to overshadow its originator. In rapid succession we have had Inventing Anna (about the fake German heiress Anna Delvey, who took most of Manhattan’s elite for a ride), The Dropout (the story of the biotech entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes, who built the multi-billion dollar firm Theranos on the back of fraudulent claims, and The Tinder Swindler (about pretty much exactly what it said on the tin).
And now we have Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives (Netflix), the story of how one woman was so gullible that she let a man she met online persuade her to drain $2m from her Manhattan raw-vegan restaurant, because he claimed he could make her beloved dog Leon immortal.
