Love Con Revenge Accused of Being Scripted After Viewers Call Out ‘Wooden’ Acting in the Docuseries
Love Con Revenge tells the real stories of people who have been conned by people from dating apps. The new Netflix docuseries brings back Tinder Swindler victim Cecilie Fjellhøy and pairs her up with private investigator Brianne Joseph to get deep with these personal stories.
Romance fraud scammers are those who use dating apps to scam them out of their money, and they happen more often than you think. Americans reportedly lose over $1 billion annually to these fraudsters. The series focuses on several victims stories about how they put their trust in one person, and ended up costing them much of their livelihoods.
“We would always start off with one victim, but at the end of the investigation, we had several. And I think that was the most mind-blowing aspect of it for me,” Brianne told Netflix‘s Tudum.
Is Love Con Revenge Real?
The stories in Love Con Revenge are indeed real. Several news outlets, and even the FBI, have reported on the crimes that had taken place, such as the Christopher Lloyd case and Ricky Morrissey scams, before the documentary aired on Netflix.
The documentary pointed out that the perpetrators had been given a heads up about their involvement in the crimes before it was released, and were given the opportunity to tell their side of the story. None of them took up the offer from the production team.
However, many fans assumed that the pacing and dialogue between the subjects and the investigators were extremely scripted. One popular Reddit thread post read, “It was clear that much of the material was scripted and planned before on camera which made it feel wooden from these real people doing a great thing for these women who were struggling to move on. The spacing and editing made me wish the 2x speed play feature was available on the tv.”
One popular comment read, “The heart of it was good but if you’re telling real women’s stories, the editing shouldn’t make it feel fake. It undercut the whole message.” Another agreed, “The way they’re presenting these cases feels so corny and unnecessary, which is a turn off, cuz this is cable tv level nonsense. I’m gonna finish the episode but I think I’m already done with this. It could’ve been so much better given the context smh”
Even TV critics had something to say about its flow. A review from The Guardian read, “There are also the laborious exchanges between Fjellhøy and Joseph, a number of which feel scripted, as they explain increasingly unnecessarily to each other and to us what they are going to do, what they are doing, and why.”
All reality TV or documentaries are scripted in a way for it to fit the format better and to natrually bring out the drama. However, it’s another thing for it to be super exaggerated for it overwhelm the message of what it’s trying to convey.
