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.