The Tinder Swindler review: Netflix crime documentary reaffirms there’s no country for wronged women

Language: English

You’re going about a normal day, and a notification pops up on your phone. You see it, but it just lies there with 15 other things screaming for your attention. Then you notice it’s a Tinder match, so there are butterflies in your stomach by now. When you click on the profile of the person you’ve matched with, you see expensive cars, selfies in many exotic locations, and designer wear all around – basically a supersonic life. You know better than to believe what you see on Instagram, but you’re impressed nonetheless. He messages you saying he’s only in town for a couple of days, in case you’d like to meet for coffee. You’re intrigued, so you agree to meet him at his fancy hotel where he invites you on his private jet. You surely have a few questions by now, and when you tell your friends en route to the airport they express concern. But so giddy is one’s head-space realising they might be on the cusp of their own fairytale that common sense goes out of the window. So, you agree to accompany him on his ‘business trip’. Boom! The Tinder Swindler’s got you.

Directed by Felicity Morris, the Netflix documentary draws a chilling outline of a man called Shimon Hayut (a.k.a Simon Leviev) running a complex, multi-layered scheme, where he baits women with his jet-setting lifestyle, tells them tales about the threat to his life from his ‘enemies’ in business, and then swindles them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by requesting them to sign up for a platinum credit card and linking them to his account. The modus operandi is methodically recounted by his victims - Cecile Fjellhoy, Pernilla Sjoholm, and Ayleen Charlotte – who were also the voices in the story by Norway’s largest tabloid - VG.

Shimon Hayut in a still from The Tinder Swindler trailer | Netflix

Cecile and Pernilla start off things, as they speak about Simon’s grand gestures that swept them off their feet. The initial period of the courtship, the parties where the Champagne flowed, and most importantly how their relationship blossomed over Whatsapp. The seemingly insignificant emojis and the empty texts like “I love you” and “I miss you” forged trust over the course of a few weeks. Morris’ film seamlessly blends videos shot by the victims and the reconstructed portions of the meetings as described by them. Morris is almost clinical in the manner that she uses pictures and footage of the man, and fuses them with the interviews of those narrating the scenes.

It’s most effective when Morris springs up Simon’s texts to his victims on screen out of the blue, giving the same jolt to the viewer that the women must have experienced at the time. It makes us wonder how we would react. Would we have fallen for it?

Morris also touches upon how the women were shamed and laughed at, when the story was finally published by VG. There were a horrifying number of comments calling the women all kinds of names. It reminded me of the condescending ‘advice’ that flooded my timeline during the episode of Nidhi Razdan’s “Harvard offer”. Many were gleeful as they spoke about how Razdan ‘deserved it’ and also how it was really terrible that a journalist of her stature got conned for over a year. The lack of empathy was startling. Morris corrects that in this film, because she paints such a comprehensive picture of the victims’ psyche during the act, and the aftermath that it becomes impossible for us to keep sitting on our pedestal and judge these women. She lets the truth surface that as human beings we all do foolish things on a daily basis, but that doesn’t necessarily make us ‘deserve’ it. Sometimes, we overextend our trust in certain people which backfires, but that doesn’t mean that we’ve somehow brought it upon ourselves.

Three of the women Shimon Hayut conned come together to tell their story on The Tinder Swindler. Picture: Netflix

If anything, the Netflix documentary shows how the women overcame the debilitating con to help the authorities get hold of this man, who was supposedly conning scores of women across dozens of European cities. We see how Pernilla puts herself in harm’s way to help VG’s reporters gather evidence against Simon. Then there’s Ayleen, who does the unthinkable and finds a way to get her money back (it’s bold and hilarious, when you find out).

The Tinder Swindler is an ideal 21st century horror story, where the cons are so sophisticated that it’s almost impossible to tell the truth from a lie anymore. It also paints a rather depressing picture of the way local law enforcement and judiciaries around the world view crimes of catfishing and digital frauds, and their laxity in dealing with them. It’s disheartening to note that while the women braved humiliation in the public eye only so that they could warn other victims from falling prey to him, Simon continues to operate as a ‘free man’ who now offers ‘business services’ and continues to be able to afford a high-end lifestyle. Maybe, there truly is no country for wronged women.

The Tinder Swindler is streaming on Netflix.

Watch the trailer here

Tatsam Mukherjee has been working as a film journalist since 2016. He is based out of Delhi NCR.