The Woman Who Wasn't There (2012) User Reviews

A Disturbing Fraud

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 10 June 2014]

"The Woman Who Wasn't There" is a psychological thriller that goes inside the mind of history's most infamous 9/11 survivor: Alicia Esteve "Tania" Head, a pathological liar and hideously ugly creature.

Who is this, mourning over a real person, but her stories of their romance are completely fabricated -- they never met. Who makes up such a vivid description of crawling through smoke and flames on the 78th floor of the South Tower? Head claimed a degree from Harvard University and a graduate business degree from Stanford University, but those institutions had no record of her. Head claimed she had been working at Merrill Lynch in the World Trade Center, but Merrill Lynch had no record of her employment. Heck, she was not even in the country at the time.

And then, she was photographed with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former New York Governor George Pataki. Her story is fascinating and makes for a good documentary, but she is such an ugly person, taking a tragedy and turning it into some sort of selfish game.

not evil....mental illness

[aeasmmikey-86536 · 8/10 · 8 August 2021]

In my VERY humble opinion, this woman was/is not evil. Her mental illness was not even examined a little bit in this piece. Which for me at least, left a gaping hole. One or two interviews with mental health professionals to explain this "phenomenon" would have been helpful.

Also -- more fingers should have been pointed at journalists early on not doing their jobs. As a life-long (now retired) journalist, one or two phone calls early on would have exposed her lies early on. Did no one think to verify what hospital reattached her arm, or verified her Harvard degree, or her employment with Merrill Lynch? Wow...somebody was really asleep at the wheel.

What a Psycho!!!

[saysjenn · 8/10 · 11 August 2022]

Imagine craving attention so much that you would fake your way into a 9/11 survivor group! The way she tried to overshadow actual survivors with her own fake tales is disgusting. It must be similar to those with munchausen by proxy syndrome.

There is no way she leads a normal honest life now. People like her can't stop this level of psychopathy.

interesting but despicable story

[oscar-35 · 13 August 2013]

*Spoiler/plot- The Woman Who wasn't There, 2012. The story of a fake 9-11 attack survivor that used that event to her own benefit.

*Special Stars- 'Tanya Head' aka Alicia Esteve.

*Theme- Some people will do or say anything to belong and be important.

*Trivia/location/goofs- Documentary, TV movie. Tanya's real name Alicia Esteve.

*Emotion- An interesting but despicable story of a sad emotional foreigner women who concocted a phony story about her fake 9-11 attack involvement and her years of damaging the real 9-11 victims lives and their psyche. A good lesson for people to see how far some unethical people will go to make themselves important and supported by naive people.

*Based On- New York Times news article.

Ugh. Some despicable people in this world.

[DarknessVisible20 · 7/10 · 28 June 2022]

A depressing but necessary reminder that you can't blindly trust anybody. That there are many truly vile people in this world, many hiding in sheep's clothing. It seems to be a theme that women who don't get enough attention in real life, instead of working on themselves, sometimes resort to awful things to get attention - watch the TV reality show Catfish for many examples. Albeit, this is an extreme case. This is a person with no conscience, no moral compass, who preyed upon people going through unspeakable grief, and manipulated their grief to her advantage. Awful, despicable human being. She needs to be tracked down and locked up for the rest of her days. Or better yet, locked in a room for five minutes with the people she has victimized and exploited.

The hijackers were not the only perpetrators of evil on 9/11

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 17 January 2015]

"The Woman Who Wasn't There" is a documentary about frustratingly evil woman. 'Tania Head' (she actually has many aliases--this is one of them) gained a lot of notoriety as a leader in the 9/11 survivor community. Often she was in the limelight--acting as a spokesperson for all the survivors of this terrorist attack. The reasons she rose to such notoriety are how compelling and chilling her story is as well as her deliberately insinuating herself into leadership positions in support organizations. The problem is that it turns out that she NEVER was at 9/11 during the attack...heck, it even appears that she wasn't even living in the US at the time!

To tell the story, the film mostly lets Tania and her friends and associates tell their stories. There isn't commentary nor is there really any attempt to explain why she perpetrated this vicious fraud. Personally, I like this about the film as too often people try to explain away bad behaviors--and there really is no need to try to understand or explain. What she did was awful...period. And the film does a good job of projecting this and showing the harm she did to the real victims.

Amazing!

[tffnycrocker · 10/10 · 13 July 2014]

This was an amazing, well put together documentary! I have watched it more then once and have recommended it to several friends. What a crazy story, even with reading the title and knowing where its headed it still has a way of surprising you. I found myself starting to believe her, already knowing the truth because how detailed she was. It's also interesting to Google her after you watch it.... It was interesting to hear what she has been up to and finding out that she as of a year ago was working at a law firm but was terminated (according to what I found) after the documentary came out. I definitely recommend this film. I have turned several of my friends onto it that have all enjoyed it.

A walking vacuum

[labng · 5/10 · 4 October 2021]

This can't have been her first and only depravity. Nor probably her last...

Great expose

[ejamc · 10/10 · 6 August 2018]

Pretending that you survived one of the most horrific days in history, American or world, just for the sake of getting attention is horrible! This woman obviously has a pathological problem with lying!

What she could have done

[thx2468 · 8 July 2019]

Was to help the Survivor´s network exactly the way she did but WITHOUT LIES!! She was capable, she acomplished a lot of things for the group and if she had been honest from the begining, people would have loved her even more! People liked her and missed her after she disappear!!!! She screwed up big time by lying.

Wow!

[wildcat-26887 · 8/10 · 14 March 2022]

What a bizarre story! I can't believe I've never heard it before. One of the worst tragedies in history and this woman pretends to be there?!? Not only there but inside a tower! Why?? Who knows and maybe we'll never know. Whatever the case is.. the families still reel from the horrific tragedy. This woman's lie and portrayal was so terrible and how she hurt others could be seen as unforgivable. However, I still pray for those people who lost their loved ones. 9-11-2001 should never be forgotten.

Mediocre

[suego-49293 · 2/10 · 24 August 2021]

Save yourself some time and just google her name. You will get much more info and will know all you need to know in a very short time. This documentary is poorly done and doesn't give you many details about the story she wove regarding what she claimed to go through even though they repeatedly say that everyone thought her story was much worse than theirs. What little they do tell you about her account isn't enough to say, oh she suffered more than others that day. Not at all. I felt deeply for the true survivors that she duped and ultimately hurt deeply with her lies, but this was her story and it was not well told.