Why Netflix’s New Series Apple Cider Vinegar Is A Must-Watch
Stories based on true crime are Netflix’s bread and butter, with dramas like Monsters, Griselda and The Good Nurse all finding success in recent years.
Their latest effort, Apple Cider Vinegar, looks a bit like the streamer’s smash hit Inventing Anna: it is based on the real-life case of an Australian woman named Belle Gibson (played by Booksmart star Kaitlyn Dever), who becomes a “wellness guru” giving pseudoscientific medical advice. After becoming a sensation for her tips and supposed “cures”, the character’s world begins to unravel once her claims are thrown into question.
What is Apple Cider Vinegar about?
Set in Australia, Netflix’s miniseries follows Gibson’s rise to fame and subsequent downfall, beginning in her early 20s as she amassed a following online for her wellness tips. Gibson became known in particular for her app The Whole Pantry that launched in 2013, which provided recipes and various health and wellness guides. It even became a best seller on the App Store, and spawned an Apple Watch version and an accompanying cookbook. While Belle is at the centre of the series, Apple Cider Vinegar also focuses on her friend Milla (played by Fear The Walking Dead’s Alycia Debnam-Carey), who joins her in promoting alternative and natural medicine in the early days of social media (though, unlike Belle, has a confirmed medical condition).
Central to Belle’s claims was her story that she had been diagnosed with various cancers and that she had managed to restore her health from the lifestyle she practised. But, as we see in the miniseries, her cancer story would eventually be exposed as unfounded and was one of the reasons Gibson would eventually be convicted as a scammer. The show will also explore how the various wellness claims pushed by Belle affected those who followed them, often people with genuine health conditions, including Lucy (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), a cancer patient who becomes enamoured with the advice Belle dispenses.
The trailer briskly showcases how Belle becomes hooked on her quest to build a media empire from her alternative medicine tips, particularly how she used Facebook and Instagram in their early 2010s incarnations to shoot to fame. Even though she befriends Milla, there’s also foreshadowing that the two will eventually fall out after Belle’s secret is revealed.
What else do we know, and when can I watch?
One to note is that the series draws inspiration from real events, but it is a work of fiction. According to Netflix, “Apple Cider Vinegar is a true-ish story based on a lie, about the rise and fall of a wellness empire, the culture that built it up, and the people who tore it down. Certain characters and events have been created or fictionalised.”
The six-episode miniseries also stars Aisha Dee (Safe Home) as Chanelle, who will become a source in the media telling of Belle’s deceptions, along with Mark Coles Smith (Hard Rock Medical), Ashley Zukerman (Succession) and Susie Porter (The Artful Dodger). It arrives on Netflix on 6th February.
