Netflix
Know-how each giveth and taketh away—a reality confirmed by The Tinder Swindler, a brand new Netflix documentary (Feb. 2) about Simon Leviev, who met numerous ladies on Tinder and wooed them with claims that he was the inheritor to a billion-dollar diamond-industry fortune. With assistance from that courting app, in addition to Instagram, WhatsApp and Google Maps, Simon satisfied his new girlfriends that he was residing the excessive life—and furthermore, that he needed to share it with them. The one drawback, he cautioned them, was that he had ”enemies” who needed to take him out, which meant that he wanted their monetary assist.
Directed by Felicity Morris (producer of the streaming service’s Do not F**okay with Cats: Looking an Web Killer), The Tinder Swindler is equal components non-fiction exposé and thriller, primarily advised by means of the tales of two ladies. The primary, Cecilie Fjellhøy, is a Norway native and self-described “Tinder knowledgeable.” Through the favored hook-up app, she crossed paths with Simon, who offered himself as a trendy businessman who attended a number of skilled conferences and appreciated to go to the seaside. They turned out to be a Tinder match, and promptly had a date on the 4 Seasons in London, the place he advised her about his job as CEO of LLD Diamonds. Throughout that first get-together, he invited Cecilie to affix him on a enterprise journey to Bulgaria, and within the blink of an eye fixed she was touring to the airport in a Rolls Royce, and flying on a non-public jet alongside a lady who claimed to be Simon’s ex, just a little lady who was purportedly his daughter, and a hulking man named Peter that Simon mentioned was his bodyguard. For somebody who had grown up fantasizing a couple of Magnificence and the Beast-style whirlwind romance, this all struck Cecilie as a dream come true. (Disclaimer: Tinder is owned by Match Group, which was previously owned The Each day Beast’s guardian firm, IAC).
Their ensuing courtship was overwhelming—filled with caviar meals, lavish shows of affection, and amorous texts and voice messages despatched whereas Simon was gallivanting round Europe. When Cecilie and her mates googled Simon, they found articles about his highly effective household and its ties to Vladimir Putin, in addition to the potential risks that he confronted from industry rivals. All of this helped persuade Cecilie that the person she was falling for was a bigwig working in a stratospheric sphere of wealth, energy and peril, and recounting these early days now, she candidly admits that the scenario was intoxicating. So smitten was she that, even when she deduced that Simon was nonetheless lively on Tinder, she believed his protestations that he had deleted the app—an assertion that, as with so most of the voice messages and pictures that he despatched her throughout their relationship, is offered for all to see in The Tinder Swindler.
On the identical time that Simon was romancing Cecilie, he was moreover connecting on Tinder with Pernilla Sjøholm, who equally appreciated that he was a well-traveled, hard-working grown-up. As with Cecilie, Simon’s preliminary transfer was to spirit Pernilla away on a non-public jet—on this occasion, from Stockholm to Amsterdam—and to take her to a restaurant the place your entire workers appeared to know him. True sparks didn’t ignite between them, however Pernilla maintained contact even after this primary date, as a result of she discovered him to be a “battery charger” type of character who enlivened every thing and everybody. A short time later, she joined him and his new girlfriend Polina (a Russian mannequin) on a lavish European summer season trip.
Simon pretended to be a person of limitless means, however The Tinder Swindler makes clear that the supply of his funds was Cecilie—and, additionally, others identical to her. Due to pictures and movies of an alleged assassination try on his life that had left Peter injured, Simon satisfied Cecilie that his safety workforce had reduce off his monetary assets (for his personal safety), and that he wanted pressing financial help. Since she was now in love—and even seeking to buy an condominium for them to share—she didn’t hesitate to get him a bank card on her account, and to start taking out loans to maintain him afloat. Massive shock that, as soon as she’d racked up huge money owed, Simon frequently did not hold his guarantees to pay her again, leaving her in determined straits.
In response to her circumstances, which ultimately landed her in a psychiatric hospital, Cecilie got here clear to American Categorical, whose brokers knowledgeable her that Simon was really a infamous Israeli con man named Shimon Hayut. This bombshell drove Cecilie to Norway’s VG newspaper, whose reporters launched into an investigation that quickly led them to Pernilla. What they uncovered was a prison who’d beforehand been incarcerated for fraud, and who was now utilizing comparable cowl tales to dupe different unsuspecting ladies out of every thing they'd. When confronted with such accusations, Simon vacillated between denials and threats, and The Tinder Swindler lays naked his duplicity and rage by means of a shrewd formal construction—rife with animated textual content conversations, on-line movies, and audio missives—that particulars the intricate technique of his digital ruse.
Director Morris’ aesthetic method illustrates the way in which wherein actual and digital realities could be exploited for misleading ends, which helps rework the movie right into a cautionary story concerning the risks of believing what you see or hear in your smartphone (even when it’s backed up by in-person experiences). On the identical time, although, The Tinder Swindler additionally paints fashionable expertise as a double-edged sword, given that after VG’s bombshell article was revealed—and Cecilie and Pernilla started making the media rounds—one other of Simon’s long-term paramours, Ayleen Charlotte, got here out of the woodwork with an eerily an identical account of emotional and monetary manipulation. The distinction in Ayleen’s case, nonetheless, was that she was nonetheless in contact with Simon, thereby permitting her to take direct motion in opposition to the charlatan.
In its closing sequences, The Tinder Swindler turns into a suspenseful recap of the race to seize Simon earlier than he vanishes with a brand new alias and a plastic surgery-reconfigured face. Even when its conclusion isn’t almost as comforting as one may like, it’s a damning portrait of a person who can’t be trusted—and who, courtesy of this documentary, could have a far tougher time hiding his real identification sooner or later.