When the documentary begins we find the equivalent of a story of a fairy tale of the field of romance. London-based Norwegian Cecilie Fjellhøy recounts how she did match with a man and on their first date he took her to Bulgaria. A powerful start to what promised to be the great love story and ended up being a great scam.
A scam that ‘The Tinder scammer’ delves into, a Netflix documentary that addresses the case of Simon Leviev, an alleged millionaire playboy who for years conquered girls via the famous dating app just to suck out all the money he could by pretending he was closing multi-million dollar deals.
Or, what is the same, what has been done all his life just using Tinder. One should not expect anything really innovative in this case, which Felicity Moris (her director) explores almost exclusively through Cecilie’s testimony, which she combines with that of two other victims: Pernilla Sjöholm and Ayleen Charlotte.
A Match that goes no further
The problem is precisely not go beyond the story of these victims. There is hardly any impetus to investigate – although there is a moment when a visit to Simon’s family home is made – or to explore the details and give a broader overview of this case.
For example, the movie could have given a little higher priority to trying to solve the million dollar question: Who really is the man we know as Simon? Why does he behave like this? Many questions arise in the viewer’s head and the answers are too short.
This causes that, although I recognize that the plots and the testimonies hook, ‘The Tinder scammer’ falls short as a documentary. CThis is how it looks like a report of those that you read in the magazine Soon (to say some similar cut magazine). It can be more or less interesting, but it is superficial.