Based on the number of limited series and documentaries about grifters and con artists in recent years, the 2010s seemed to be something of a Golden Age, or should we say Fool’s Gold Age, in the genre. The roster includes:
- “Inventing Anna” on Netflix, with Julia Garner as Anna Sorokin aka Anna Delvey, who posed as a wealthy heiress from 2013 to 2017.
- “The Dropout” on Hulu, with Amanda Seyfried as disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who was indicted on fraud charges in 2018 and eventually sentenced to 11 1/2 years in prison.
- “Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal,” a Netflix documentary about the parents of college applicants shelling out millions of dollars to secure scholarships. In dramatic re-enactments, Matthew Modine plays putative educational consultant William Rick Singer.
- “Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives.” This Netflix documentary chronicles the story of the vegan raw restaurant owner and entrepreneur Sarma Melngailis, who was convicted of fraud in 2017.
- “Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened” on Netflix, and “Fyre Fraud” on Hulu, two documentaries about the fraudulent Fyre Festival in the Bahamas in 2017.
- “The Tinder Swindler” on Netflix, which told the story of a Ponzi scheme that conned victims of hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2010s.
Now comes the six-part Netflix dramatic series “Apple Cider Vinegar,” a head-spinning and engrossing dramatization of the story of Belle Gibson, whose long con was particularly nefarious. It was damning enough that Gibson spun an elaborate biography in which she falsely stated she had brain cancer and claimed she was defeating the odds via alternative methods. It was even worse that Gibson became a social media star, landing a lucrative book deal and creating an app for her brand that was given a coveted pre-installed position when Apple Watch launched.
Most obscene of all, Gibson’s crackpot theories negatively impacted real cancer patients who were given false hope, and she never followed through on promises to send donated funds to families who had been impacted by cancer.
“Apple Cider Vinegar” creator Samantha Strauss (“Nine Perfect Strangers”) favors a style reminiscent of stylish films such as “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “The Big Short,” peppering the screen with colorful graphics and having characters breaking the fourth wall at the outset of episodes, as when Kaitlyn Dever as Belle looks right at us in the premiere and says, “This is a true story based on a lie. Some names have been changed to protect the innocent. Belle Gibson has not been paid for the re-creation of her story. F- – -ers.”
Admirably, though, the series never pulls back in its portrayal of Gibson as a pathological liar and borderline sociopath and narcissist who never even seems to consider the damage she’s causing as she makes her grab for fame and fortune. Every time Belle is called out on a lie, be it relatively minor or blimp-sized, she turns it into a pity party and proves to be a master of deflection and improvisational fib-building.
The Phoenix-born Dever gives a screen-grabbing performance and only occasionally slips with a more than passable Australian accent, while most of the other main players in this largely Australian-set story are from Oz.
Alycia Debnam-Carey gives a heartbreaking performance as Milla Blake (who is loosely based on the late, real-life Australian writer Jessica Ainscough), who really did have a rare cancer diagnosis, and chose to treat her sarcoma with alternative treatments, including multiple coffee enemas every day, and constant juicing. There’s an “All About Eve” vibe to the dynamic between Belle and Milla, who become online allies and then bitter rivals, as Milla encourages her close friend Chanelle (Aisha Dee), who worked for both influencers, to expose Belle for her lies.
Mark Coles Smith is the conscience of the story as an investigative journalist who has a particularly vested interest in exposing Belle’s lies, as his wife Lucy (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) has breast cancer and has become an ardent fan of Belle’s.
“Apple Cider Vinegar” has an unnecessarily haphazard timeline, jumping back and forth between Melbourne and Santa Monica and Sydney and 2010 and 2013 and 2015 and 2015 (again) and then back to 2010 more than a dozen times in just the first episode. With so many storylines to follow, that just makes it extra challenging to keep up.
More impressive is how the series conveys drastic changes in mood. When Belle and/or Milla are becoming social media stars, it’s almost like an upbeat 2012 rom-com, filmed in bright colors, with needle drops from Sara Bareilles and Katy Perry, whereas the scenes in hospitals are lensed in muted blues and off-whites.
We never get the definitive answer as to why Belle Gibson perpetuated so many lies for so long, most likely because there IS no clear-cut answer. What we’re left with is a simmering sense of anger at Belle, and the deepest possible sympathies for anyone who in their darkest moments would quite understandably and quite sadly cling to her story for solace.