We may have a budding Netflix microgenre on our hands. First came Inventing Anna, the story of super-scam artist Anna Sorokin (AKA Anna Delvey, brilliantly played in all her many incarnations by Julia Garner), who glided through New York high society posing as a German heiress while relieving her marks of bountiful sums of money. It was a stylishly and energetically directed tale of one woman’s fabulous chutzpah, talents and ambition put to misdirected use and eventually causing her to come a cropper. Such a tale, too, is Apple Cider Vinegar, which features an equally masterly performance from Dopesick’s Kaitlyn Dever as the wellness influencer Belle Gibson, who built a lucrative empire on the back of her story about beating supposedly terminal brain cancer via healthy living. That story – and you may be ahead of me here – was false. As a different character glances at the camera to say near the start of every episode of the six-part series: “This is a true story based on a lie.” It is also stated that (unlike Sorokin) Gibson has not been paid for the re-creation of her story. “Fuckers,” adds Belle when it’s her turn to open.
The spine of the show, which unfolds back and forth from around 2010, is Gibson’s growing rivalry with another influencer, Milla Blake (Alicia Debnam-Carey) – seemingly inspired by the late Jessica Ainscough – who also promulgates alternative therapies for cancer treatment. The crucial difference between them is that Milla does have cancer and is a true believer in the non-traditional methods that appear to have saved her. A third, not wholly necessary, narrative strand follows another cancer patient, Lucy (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), who is drawn to Belle’s internet charms and implicit promises.
