LONDON: At the start of each of the six episodes of “Apple Cider Vinegar,” one of the main characters looks directly into the camera and says: “This is a true story based on a lie.” It’s a quick way of getting viewers up to speed with the tale of a pair of young Australian women, Belle Gibson (Kaitlyn Dever) and Milla Blake (Alycia Debnam-Carey), who dominated the early days of Instagram and were at the forefront of the emergence of the online wellness movement.
Kaitlyn Dever as Belle in 'Apple Cider Vinegar.' (Supplied)
Belle (a real person) and Milla (based on entrepreneur Jessica Ainscough) both espouse the use of alternative healing therapies to beat their own cancer diagnoses, and as a result garner massive online followings during the nascent days of influencer culture. The kicker, however, is that Milla’s cancer is very real, and very documented, while Belle’s is quite the opposite. Acknowledging this from the very first episode, director Jeffrey Walker smartly levels the playing field — whether you’re familiar with the real-world story or not, the secret at the center of Belle’s web of lies, and the business empire that was built upon it, adds a dramatic heft and sense of satisfying inevitability to “Apple Cider Vinegar,” even as the show’s timeline leaps forward and backwards with abandon.
In addition to following Belle and Milla, the show also focuses on Lucy — a cancer patient who is one of Belle’s most ardent followers — and Chanelle, Milla’s friend who later becomes Belle’s assistant. But Walker never strays far from the central conceit: Belle’s fascinating and horrifying propensity to lie her way into more trouble knows no bounds, and no lie is too extreme for a young woman who is clearly very troubled.
Kaitlyn Dever as Belle in 'Apple Cider Vinegar.' (Supplied)
Dever deftly avoids painting Belle as a pantomime villain, but also leans into the malice bubbling just beneath the personable surface. Debnam-Carey’s Milla is an altogether different part — while there’s no subterfuge, there is a frighteningly naïve lack of understanding of the power Milla wields over family and followers.
“Apple Cider Vinegar” relies on its powerhouse leads, but it’s also a carefully considered cautionary tale that recounts a fascinating period of our recent history. It’s concise, hard-hitting and, having emerged with very little fanfare, reminiscent of the best Netflix sleeper hits.
