Discomfort lies at the center of Apple Cider Vinegar. Secondhand embarrassment from the early days of Instagram, squirm-inducing lies from a wellness influencer, the bleak reality of cancer diagnoses—the limited series is determined to confront it all, from Facebook comments to chemo treatments.
Inspired by the story of Australian influencer-slash-scammer Belle Gibson, Apple Cider Vinegar takes some liberties and changes some names, but it sticks to the general sequence of actual events with a real sense of dedication. Belle (Kaitlyn Dever) is a young single mother with singular ambition—and an affinity for lying about major medical issues. She cultivates an unreciprocated online friendship with lifestyle blogger Milla (Alycia Debnam-Carey), whose brand has taken off thanks to a bold claim: she’s cured her cancer with healthy eating, among other organic methods. Of course, the truth is far more complex, but Milla’s success is enough to encourage Belle to follow a similar path. Both are interested in pursuing wellness, but while Milla is dealing with a rare skin cancer, Belle claims to have terminal brain cancer—“claims” being the operative word there.
Belle’s business savvy and compelling life story help launch her career as a major social media and tech creator. She times her interest in Instagram perfectly, then uses her thousands upon thousands of sympathetic followers to springboard her into a book deal and an app. Her company, The Whole Pantry, even partners with Apple to be a default app on the new Apple Watch. It’s a meteoric rise, one doomed to crash land.
The miniseries starts at the end of the story: Belle has been busted as a fraudster, the how and why of her ruse due to be detailed over the course of six episodes. Her downfall was facilitated by a disgruntled former friend and manager, Chanelle (Aisha Dee), and her collaborations with an investigative reporter named Justin (Mark Coles Smith). Justin has a special connection to this case thanks to his wife Lucy (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), a woman suffering from breast cancer who has found more relief in Belle’s posts than her chemo sessions. The show also threads in Milla’s descent into the world of alternative medicine and holistic health, tracking her and her family’s story throughout Belle’s rise and fall.
Apple Cider Vinegar is the kind of series that would benefit from being told in a linear fashion, if only because its attempt at non-linear storytelling is often dizzying. The first two episodes suffer from frantic writing and editing, throwing chyrons of different dates and locations on screen and hoping they stick. Once the dust from all the exposition settles, the show falls into a more reliable rhythm, but not one without the odd questionable creative choice. It really leans into the early 2010s of it all, with prototypical emojis and mildly cringey needle drops galore (save for an ingenious, metatextual use of Sara Bareilles’ “Brave” and Katy Perry’s “Roar” spread across a few episodes). The series is trapped in a bygone era of social media by design, but the obviousness of its period details are occasionally distracting. At one point, Belle mentions “the Facebook movie,” and Belle very clearly stands as a version of The Social Network’s Mark Zuckerberg; simultaneously, the series tries to take several pages out of The Wolf of Wall Street’s book, but its cocksure narration and snappy montage come across as more gimmicky than anything.
Apple Cider Vinegar inevitably pales in comparison to these predecessors, but that doesn’t mean it’s a failure. Rather, the longer the series goes on, the more sure of itself and its story it becomes. While Belle is the main event, the big bad, the source of the scam, Milla is the key to all of it. A young woman terrified at the prospect of dying, she’s also a girl who can’t understand that the best option for her is still not an ideal one. When she goes off to do her own research (a doctor’s worst nightmare) and rejects her oncologist’s decision to amputate her cancer-ridden arm, she genuinely thinks she’s doing what’s right for her and her body. She embraces that feeling of agency in a moment where she has very little, and it ignites a renewed sense of hope that she wants to share with the world. Unlike Belle, Milla’s plan isn’t to lie to people for profit; that she does so anyway is a painful truth that she must confront. Debnam-Carey navigates Milla’s morality with real skill and understanding, crafting a performance that’s as likely to infuriate you as it will break your heart.
And though Debnam-Carey is a major highlight, the series would be nothing without Dever’s messy and malicious Belle. Touting a generally credible Aussie accent and a strong set of lungs, the actress makes Belle’s enigmatic narcissism compelling. There is something deeply wrong with her, and Dever embraces that chaos and villainy. She isn’t without her sympathetic moments either, with Belle sharing several emotionally gripping scenes with her partner Clive (Ashley Zukerman), a character whose own complicity is called into question. Their layered interactions get juicier as the show goes on, and the series gets more complex with every argument and unspoken agreement. Apple Cider Vinegar may be built on a bevy of scandalous lies, but the truths that the characters can’t admit to themselves are what make it worth the watch.
‘Apple Cider Vinegar’ begins streaming on Netflix on February 6th.
