One of the most nerve jangling and sharply constructed limited series in recent memory, the innocuous sounding Apple Cider Vinegar is as acidic as its namesake and just as rousing to the senses. A “true-ish” story “based on a real lie,” Apple Cider Vinegar series creator Samantha Strauss and director Jeffrey Walker use the story of disgraced Australian wellness influencer and entrepreneur Belle Gibson as the jumping off point for a larger discussion about social media perception and the emotional manipulation of people in crisis. This is a story about bad actors, grifters, and misguided true believers doing terrible things all so they can be seen as experts on healing, and it’s bound to garner strong reactions from viewers. But love it or loathe it – and I happen to love it – Apple Cider Vinegar will leave everyone in its wake with purposefully mixed emotions and plenty to think about.
Billed as a mother, influencer, artists, and brain cancer survivor, Belle Gibson (Kaitlyn Dever) presents herself to the world as an inspirational self-starter. The founder of her own recipe empire, Gibson espouses the healing benefits of healthy eating to her legions of followers. But as Strauss and Walker show across their show’s non-linear timeline, Gibson also suffers a catastrophic fall from grace, with many claiming that her cancer diagnosis was entirely made up, and none of her self-perpetuated mythology has a lick of truth to it. Over the course of several years, Gibson went from being a celebrated inspirational story to one of the most hated human beings on Earth.
Belle Gibson certainly exists, and some of the characters around the periphery of Apple Cider Vinegar are amalgamations of real people, but a great deal of the show has been fictionalized. And when one considers that the show is based around a person and indeed and entire industry that has made a killing off of lies, half-truths, and preying on people’s deepest existential fears, that becomes pretty easy to handle. Through a variety of different characters who start off each instalment via a direct address to camera, it’s made clear – repeatedly so – that Gibson was not paid in any way for her story, despite the fact that this is credited as an adaptation of journalists Beau Donnelly and Nick Toscano’s book The Woman Who Fooled the World. It probably wouldn’t have been worth much anyway to get Gibson’s skewed take on things, and instead of giving a blow for blow recounting of Belle’s life and misdeeds, Strauss uses the show as an opportunity to paint a larger picture of the wellness industry as a whole and an indictment over influencer culture.
Gibson not so subtly fashions her own image after that of her most cherished wellness icon, Milla Blake (Alycia Debnam-Carey), a blogger, author, and motivational speaker who refused traditional skin cancer treatment that would’ve amputated her arm in favour of an all juice diet that she insists worked. Bella adores Milla and all she stands for, but the more established Blake has little clue who Gibson is outside of some random social media DMs. But as Bella’s stock rises as a fellow “cancer survivor,” the actually afflicted Milla grows increasingly desperate in her bid to maintain relevancy, and even more detrimentally that her system of enemas and juice cleanses really work and aren’t just bad science powered by wishful thinking and pseudo-holistic beliefs.
Caught in the middle of all of this are Justin (Mark Coles Smith) and Lucy (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), a married couple on opposite sides of believing in Belle. Lucy, a coffee shop worker who is suffering from cancer, believes in Belle’s postings and authenticity wholeheartedly. Justin, on the other hand and in spite of his clear love for his wife, is an investigative journalist that has been approached by Milla’s lifelong best friend and Belle’s frustrated manager, Chanelle (Aisha Dee), to do an deep dive into her boss’ present and past. As much as Justin insists Belle is a charlatan, Lucy refuses to believe him.
There is a lot going on in Apple Cider Vinegar, the rare example these days of a show that warrants being six full-on, hour-long episodes. (I haven’t even mentioned anything involving Milla and Belle’s family lives, which could make for series fodder on their own, or Gibson’s manipulation of her own crisis counsel, played by Phoenix Raei.) While a lot of this is interconnected plotting, colliding characters, and connecting threads designed to construct a well told story, Strauss’ vision for this series is largely twofold. On one hand, this is a King of Comedy/Uncut Gems/The Dropout level examination of a sociopathic person who will do anything and everything to get the life they think they are earned, but don’t really deserve.
On the other, this is a heart-wrenching story about how people can come to believe in anything that can provide solace during painful troubling times. In our lowest, most desperate moments – when everything seems hopeless – we’re willing to try almost anything. Belle’s story isn’t entirely tragic, but everyone in her immediate orbit lives in misery because of her actions. But beyond that inner circle of Strauss’ characters are a lot of everyday people who find comfort in plausibly constructed lies. Apple Cider Vinegar hits a skin-crawling tone that a lot of viewers might find off-putting and hard to watch, but within that discomfort is a lot of coal black comedy and humanity.
There’s not much nobility to be found in Apple Cider Vinegar outside of Milla’s blue collar parents (Matt Nable and Susie Porter) and her supportive partner, Arlo (Chai Hansen). For all of the good qualities she shows to the outside world, Belle is clearly a menace. Milla becomes so distraught that she can only focus on destroying her closest rival, doubling down on her own worst impulses in the process. Chanelle – in her character’s introductory voiceover – says she’s the hero of this story, but her occasional lapses into pettiness make that debatable. Justin treats his ailing wife like a child, while Lucy refuses to listen to any of the research her husband has conducted and presented her with. Plenty of people in their orbit are wholly complicit in believing the lies because “they aren’t hurting people” (spoiler alert: they do actually hurt people) or because everyone loves a good story of female empowerment. Strauss and Walker are taking people down a dark rabbit hole that leads right into a snake pit, examining people trying to extrude and peddle the oil they get from the reptiles inside.
Walker keeps the pace of the show brisk and refreshing for something that has a lot of ground to cover, and the director has a keen sense of whenever things might be getting too bleak. Walker never runs from the inherent darkness of Strauss’ material or the real life tragedies it’s built upon, but breathers always arrive at just the right moment. Walker also comes up with some visually slick and inventive ways of illustrating the dopamine rush people often get from receiving even the hollowest words of kindness and support on the internet and how lies can be translated into a love language. With Walker, Strauss has found a wonderful collaborator.
And they both struck gold with the casting of Dever, a performer who continues their upward trajectory by showing unlimited potential. In her best and most award worthy performance to date, Dever (sporting possibly the best Aussie accent ever attempted by an American) wholly embodies Belle’s various neuroses and tics. Whether Belle is smiling through an obvious amount of anger and accusations or throwing a full on fit to garner attention, Dever makes a character that’s so off-putting that you can’t take your eyes off her. Cynically, you can understand what makes Belle equal parts creepy and charming. You can also hate everything she does. But in Dever’s hands, the character has a degree of humanity that makes the character believable and even more frightening than if she had portrayed Belle as a baseline villain. Apple Cider Vinegar is already chilling to watch, but Dever finds ways to imbue her character with warmth, even as she dumps ice onto everything around her. Dever gives one of the best performances ever in a limited series. No small amount of credit for the show’s success should also go to Debnam-Carey as Belle’s chief rival and inspiration, with the performer finding her character’s numerous layers of good intentions amid cloudy visions and motivations.
Apple Cider Vinegar will leave many viewers shaken, but maybe they need to be. It’s not a show that judges viewers for their beliefs in alternative medicine or holistic healing, but it asks them to try harder to identify what’s in their best interests. It also could be accused of letting Belle Gibson off a bit lightly in the way it plays fast and loose with its own tether to the real case. But in the same way Gibson profited from pulling on the heartstrings of people looking for guidance and inspiration in a world that only continues to get worse, the show uses those same techniques against her, and to scathing degrees. It’s a series that hasn’t left my mind since I finished it, and I have a feeling Dever’s performance and the darkness surrounding the subject matter will be with me for a long time.
Apple Cider Vinegar streams on Netflix starting Thursday, February 6, 2025.
