One of the biggest TV trends of the 2020s has been the rise of scammer dramas. From Netflix’s “Inventing Anna” to Hulu’s “The Dropout” to AppleTV+’s “WeCrashed,” these stylized, slightly fictionalized retellings of ripped-from-the-headlines stories chart the rise and fall of glamorous, media-savvy entrepreneurs (many of them young women) who promise the moon only to deliver hot air.
The latest to join their ranks is Netflix’s “Apple Cider Vinegar,” a six-part miniseries inspired by an Australian wellness influencer who claimed she beat brain cancer through healthy eating, out Thursday. And while the series starts and ends with a bit of a style-over-substance approach, the middle chunk of episodes are among the best the scammer drama genre has produced so far.
That’s thanks to a particularly sensitive approach from creator Samantha Strauss, who got her start co-creating the Australian teen drama “Dance Academy” before joining the writing team for Hulu’s own wellness drama, “Nine Perfect Strangers.” Strauss combines those two experiences into a show that’s as interested in capturing a snapshot of early 2010s girl culture (think blogs, Instagram, burgeoning fourth wave feminism, and flower crowns) as it is in delving into the particulars of one specific scam.
Strauss structures her story like an onion, with layers of overlapping timelines that only slowly peel back to reveal the full truth. The series starts in 2015, when narcissistic wellness celebrity Belle Gibson (Kaitlyn Dever) enlists a crisis manager to help her smooth over a public scandal that she faked her cancer diagnosis.
But Belle’s rise and fall is just one-fourth of this tale. We soon flash back to 2009 to follow Milla Blake (Alycia Debnam-Carey), an earlier alternative medicine influencer who really did have cancer; Chanelle (Aisha Dee), a manager who helped both Milla and Belle launch their careers; and Lucy (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), a woman with breast cancer who falls under Belle’s social media spell, even as her journalist husband (Mark Coles Smith) begins to investigate Belle’s outlandish health claims.
Indeed, much of “Apple Cider Vinegar” is spent simply detailing how harrowing cancer is and how impossible the options feel for those navigating it. While the series ultimately condemns the anti-science influencers who sweet talk their followers into ignoring doctors, it starts from a place of trying to understand them, too. When 22-year-old Milla is told that the only way to treat her rare skin cancer is to amputate her entire arm, she’s understandably aghast, particularly when the news is delivered by a blunt male doctor who doesn’t seem interested in viewing her as a three-dimensional human being. It’s understandable, even admirable, to watch her research experimental drug trials and advocate for her own treatment plan.
It’s just that she takes things too far, falling under the spell of a pseudo-science “institute” that promises it can cure cancer with juice cleanses and coffee enemas. Milla soon develops a cult-like devotion to alternative medicine that she both monetizes and emotionally weaponizes with her family.
Belle’s story is less straightforward and even less sympathetic, but in between charting her pathological lies, Strauss also explores how male abuse and maternal neglect shaped Belle’s callous ambition and obsessive need to be loved. It’s that feeling that initially leads Belle toward Milla — first as an idolized online bestie and then, when she realizes Milla just sees her as another fan, as a competitor to beat in the “wellness space.” While both women ultimately do despicable things in the name of alternative medicine, Milla’s motivations at least start in a nobler place than Belle’s desire for success at any cost.
Not only does “Apple Cider Vinegar” have a pitch-perfect eye for the fashion and aesthetics of the early 2010s, it also understands those years as a turning point in culture, too. It’s the era where young millennial women first found the language to describe the pressure cooker of patriarchy they’d been raised under — a realization that made the softer, gentler approach of alternative medicine so appealing. But it’s also an era where young, beautiful white women knowingly or unknowingly began to weaponize “lean in” feminism as a way to never have to hold themselves accountable either. (Cue needledrops of Sara Bareilles’s “Brave” and Katy Perry’s “Roar.”)
It’s rich territory for Dever, who has proven herself to be one of Hollywood’s brightest rising stars in movies like “Booksmart” and TV shows like “Unbelievable” and “Dopesick.” While she’s largely played sympathetic young women up until now, “Apple Cider Vinegar” lets her sink her teeth into a rich anti-heroine role (and an effortless Australian accent). Belle hides her selfish intentions behind breathy positivity, zeroing in on what each person she talks to finds most appealing and turning that element of her personality up to 11. She’s a shockingly manipulative, often outright hateable protagonist, and yet Dever ensures she never loses a core of humanity either.
It’s nuanced character work that sits somewhat oddly with the show’s more in-your-face elements, like occasional direct-to-camera addresses or an opening dance montage set to Britney Spears’s “Toxic.” “Apple Cider Vinegar” sometimes feels caught between wanting to be a serious drama and a lighter binge watch. And the series could’ve probably used one more episode to really tie everything together thematically; it becomes a bit rote when it comes to laying out Belle’s eventual fall from grace. Still, the way the show manages to smuggle big, meaty questions about modern society into a frothy, fast-paced package is an example of the scammer drama at its best. Like its lead characters, the show’s glossy exterior hides thorny truths.
APPLE CIDER VINEGAR
Starring Kaitlyn Dever, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Aisha Dee, Tilda Cobham-Hervey. On Netflix.