The true scam story subgenre has burned brightly for a while now, and with the release of WeCrashed it should probably die off soon enough.
This fresh new dramatization comes after shows like Inventing Anna, Joe Vs. Carole, and Netflix docos The Tinder Swindler, FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened and Bad Vegan. What makes WeCrashed different? Find out for yourself, with episodes of this limited series streaming exclusively on Apple TV+.
For one thing, real estate entrepeneurs Adam and Rebekah Neumann are played by Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway, bringing some Oscar-winning star power to the rags-to-riches-to-ruin saga.
The loved-up couple founded controversial office space startup WeWork in 2010, and in 2019 the company failed to go public, ending up with a net income of $4.4 billion. Sorry, negative $4.4 billion. You can learn more about this factual fall in the Wondery podcast from which this series drew inspiration.
We see WeWork’s fabulously 2010s approach in the trailer below, where they dream up hip open workspaces and a catchy company name, “selling an experience” in Hathaway’s seductive pitch. America Ferrera’s consultant character isn’t so sure: “is Adam for real?” By the time the final and eighth episode drops on April 22, we’ll find out that he is probably not.
To our ears, Leto’s prosthetic-laden, accented role as Israeli-American conman Neumann is distractingly similar to his goofy turn in House of Gucci, where he compared “shit and chocolatto” and bashed himself in the head with a newspaper.
Apparently it’s Hathaway who delivers the limited series’ knockout performance: the trailer highlights this, too, with her conniving tech-Lady-Macbeth pushing her way into the spotlight. You go get it, Rebekah—and all the poorly-invested millions and billions that WeWork earned, too.
