Apple Cider Vinegar

“Apple Cider Vinegar” doubles as both a searing and entertaining — albeit shocking — character study of an out-of-control narcissist (portrayed with sociopathic guile by a stellar Kaitlyn Dever) and as an example of the profusion of so-called wellness experts flooding social media channels.

A head-spinning and engrossing dramatization of the story of Belle Gibson.

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).

The one caveat that comes with Apple Cider Vinegar having such a wide range of talented performers is that some of them feel overshadowed by the larger nature of the plot.

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.

Apple Cider Vinegar is a fast, drily witty, acutely intelligent, compassionate and furious commentary on greed, need, mass delusion, self-deception, the exploitation of the credulous, and the enabling of insidious new forms of all of these by technology.

Apple Cider Vinegar surprised me with its breadth and depth at every turn.

Any embarrassment you might feel watching it is deftly undercut by the show’s empathy.

It’s a fine piece of storytelling that reminds us that we underestimate the awesome power of social media at our peril.

Belle, as portrayed by a revelatory Kaitlyn Dever, is a character who brings out the worst in an audience and it is delicious. .... One nagging issue with “Apple Cider Vinegar,” and no one’s fault, is Ms. Dever’s resemblance to fellow American actress Julia Garner and Belle’s ethical affinity with Ms. Garner’s character in “Inventing Anna,” i.e. the high-society fraudster Anna Delvey.

The inherent grief at the centre of this story is never far from view, but screenwriters Samantha Strauss, Anya Beyersdorf and Angela Betzien do offset that heaviness with some black humour aimed at the epic scope of Belle's fictions. It's generally well pitched, implemented at the right moments in the story and never targeted towards the experience of actual cancer patients, but understandably not everyone will feel comfortable handling the topic with any degree of lightness.

The series succeeds because of Dever, who is sensational throughout. .... It’s also extremely well written and performed, vaulting the occasional longueurs of the middle episodes of a premium mini-series with some properly penned supporting characters.

Beyond its strong performances, "Vinegar" excels in bringing to life many aspects of health care, and particularly women's negative experiences, that aren't often illustrated outside of knowing TikTok videos.

With each episode, it loses momentum in saying something important, instead becoming a practice in exercising empathy towards a broken and inherently flawed woman. Although this risks breaking apart the series’ foundation, it simultaneously makes it one of the more interesting shows in this genre.

Pseudoscientific practice occupies a lot screen time here. A lot. The story unfolds in jumbled timelines, mostly between 2009 and 2015. .... Devers’s performance makes Belle just sympathetic enough to reel you in.

A cautionary tale of almost shocking timeliness.

Apple Cider Vinegar ultimately remains engaging, especially as it goes along, but it does fall a bit short of reaching its fullest potential.

That scolding streak is the biggest detractor from what is otherwise a highly watchable show, complete with great performances, convincing accents (seriously, Dever might be the first Hollywood starlet to pull off an Aussie twang), and a spot-on re-creation of the energy of the aughts, when our nascent understanding of the internet and social media allowed Gibson’s influence (and scams) to reach new heights. But the show ultimately fails to come across as smarter than your other true-crime slop.

Juggling Instagram nonsense, devastating terminal illness and endless coffee enemas is a tricky tightrope-walk, but one that Apple Cider Vinegar manages to pull off – mostly thanks to a magnetic central performance from Kaitlyn Dever. 

All of it comes together mainly thanks to a terrific performance from Dever, Australian accent and all, whose take on Gibson is instantly familiar and unnerving.

“Apple Cider Vinegar” is an excellent platform for showcasing Devers’s talents and versatility. And it’s enjoyable enough in small bursts and character-driven scenes. But as a whole start-to-finish narrative, it lacks the necessary direction and energy to keep it truly captivating.

Apple Cider Vinegar isn’t particularly incisive as a cautionary tale about spending too much time online or recklessly listening to what a “famous person” claims. But much like the escapist powers of a good doom-scroll, it can nevertheless be an addictive, if frustrating, watch.

Even at its best, “Apple Cider Vinegar” strikes many of the same chords as other entries in the scammer canon. And often, the show falls short of its own peak thanks to an unfocused structure that diffuses much of its message.

The based-on-a-true-story drama veers all over the place in time, tone and theme, serving up a little bit of everything but not enough of anything to fully sink our teeth into.

Netflix’s latest scammer drama about an Australian woman who faked cancer enables and glamorizes its protagonist’s deceptions, telling its story from her perspective and sidelining other excellent, emotionally resonant POVs. Apple Cider Vinegar is self-aware of its own toxicity, but that doesn’t make the poison any less pernicious.

Despite fine performances from Dever and other parts of the ensemble, Apple Cider Vinegar is too busy scrambling around the storytelling for no particular reason than just concentrating on telling the story in the best way possible.