What would you do if you created a website and everything you said or did was met by a heady rush of likes, heart emojis and many, many positive comments from a devoted number of followers spurring you on to do even more?
In Netflix’s “Apple Cider Vinegar,” premiering Thursday Feb. 6, that is exactly what happens to two Australian wellness influencers in the mid-2000s. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with promoting wellness but in these cases, one influencer, Milla Blake, started her website while seeking alternative treatment for her cancer. The other, Belle Gibson, did the same with one grievously frustrating difference. Gibson did not have cancer.
Through six tragi-comedy episodes, writers Samantha Strauss (“Nine Perfect Strangers”), Anya Beyersdorf (“The Twelve”) Angela Betzien (“Total Control”) and director Jeffrey Walker explore not only the glamorous world of early influencers but how easily those seeking help and community for their devastating illnesses can quickly become swayed by someone who looks as if they have all the answers.
Milla (Alycia Debnam-Carey) was a young, pretty magazine editor in her early twenties with everything in life to look forward to when she got her diagnosis. Shocked at the idea of amputating her arm (where the cancer had first been found) to save herself, Milla searches for another way to fight back in treatments involving a plant-based diet, enemas, supplements, etc. After receiving the treatment and consulting with the practitioners, she then adapted diet and recipes to fit her lifestyle and developed the blog, calling herself “The Wellness Warrior.”
Meanwhile Gibson, a young woman who, according to numerous reports, had a troubled childhood, was a runaway at 12, may have first fallen in love with social media as a result of becoming part of a skating group. She eventually trained and worked at a catering company, which lead to her love of cooking. Armed with these add a very active imagination, a dash of hypochondria, a s—load of insecurity, a hunger for acceptance and a taste for the good life. Voila! A swindler is born.
Kaitlyn Dever (“Dopesick,” “Booksmart”) is a revelation portraying Gibson with a dead-on Aussie accent and equipped with a zillion ways to depict Gibson’s every emotion (and there are many). When her character says, “I try hard but in the end people do not like me,” she couldn’t have been more spot on. You will hate this character as she defiantly continues (or chooses) believing her own lies and keeps her empire growing no matter who she hurts.
Aussie actress Aisha Dee — as Milla’s childhood BFF Chanelle McAuliffe — is the conscience of the story trying in vain to push her new friend and employer, Belle, to admit her lies and why she’s told them. Dee, so good in Freeform’s now-classic “The Bold Type,” gets to shine as a character who wants to always be loyal and truthful, but who finds herself in Belle’s orbit simply because she is smart, motivated and looking for ways to continue her own success as a freelance start-up executive.
As Milla, Debnam-Carey (“The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart”) is the perfect foil. Debnam-Carey emotes a character seeking a cure but also love and light. She wants to embrace signs that her body can heal, that others can truly be helped by what she has discovered, and is grateful that while on her journey she may have found the romantic love of her life.
The patient, nurturing man in Milla’s life is played by Chai Hansen (“Nightsky”) with just the right measure of romance and authenticity needed. He zips easily between background scenes and becomes characteristically present when his character is featured.
Each of the male characters in “Apple Cider Vinegar,” including Mark Coles Smith as a journalist and the husband of a cancer patient; his wife Lucy (Tilda Cobham Hervey) skillfully playing anger and indifference in the wake of her diagnosis) bring a good mix between truly nurturing (no one abandons their partner through illness here) and angry enough to be frustrated by what is happening in their relationships. Ashley Zuckerman (“Succession”) has the difficult task of essaying denial, frustration, disbelief, anger and affection as the partner of conwoman Gibson.
“Apple Cider Vinegar” continues a long line of popular Netflix miniseries and documentaries spotlighting real life swindlers and con artists that receive strong reactions from viewers. The series is “inspired” by the book, “The Woman Who Fooled The World: The True Story of Fake Wellness Guru Belle Gibson” written by the journalists who first exposed her in a series of newspaper articles for The Age. The fictionalized Milla is likely based on Australian writer Jessica Ainscough.
What is interesting is that while Gibson was eventually fined and convicted of fraud, there are no winners here. All the thousands of people who read her website, bought her products and believed that they possibly could be cured were left adrift. Still others were led to follow their own health path whatever that included. It begs the question, isn’t wellness better when it’s practiced every day, not only when we are sick?
“Apple Cider Vinegar” is now streaming on Netflix.