Are you hooked on gritty true crime series but wish they could occasionally be more colorful, female and fun? Well, Netflix might just have the next show for you.
The streamer is revealing a sneak peek Tuesday of its forthcoming Australian limited series Apple Cider Vinegar, a playfully fictionalized take on the story of Belle Gibson, the Australian single mother who launched a wellness empire by convincing the world she had brain cancer but was successfully curing herself with an all-natural lifestyle.
“This is a true-ish story based on a lie, about the rise and fall of a wellness empire; the culture that built it up and the people who tore it down,” Netflix’s official summary reads.
Netflix unveiled a batch of first-look images and a teaser video this morning featuring star Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart, Dopesick, Unbelievable) as Belle during various stages of her improbable journey from anonymous striver to globally disgraced grifter.
Apple Cider Vinegar is created by award-winning Australian writer Samantha Strauss (Nine Perfect Strangers, The End), who scripted the show with up-and-coming talents Anya Beyersdorf and Angela Betzien. The series was loosely inspired by the non-fiction book The Woman Who Fooled the World, written by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, the two journalists who uncovered the details of Gibson’s deception.
But Strauss’ take on the story is much more than a simple rise and fall chronicle. With Belle at its center, Apple Cider Vinegar follows four women’s overlapping experiences with wellness and the rise of the social media influencer. With sly wit and improbable empathy, the show simultaneously scrutinizes the arrogance of the traditional medical establishment and the presumptions and false promises of the wellness industry. The show’s vibrant aesthetic and period pop score, meanwhile, provide a nostalgia trip to the early 2000s — while not shying away from what the era’s headlong embrace of social media did to our grasp on collective truth.
Tilda Cobham-Hervey (I Am Woman) plays Lucy, a woman struggling with cancer who is seduced by the community and hope offered by Belle’s Instagram feed. Alycia Debnam-Carey (Fear the Walking Dead) plays Milla Blake, a young woman who launches a rival wellness platform after she’s diagnosed with a grave form of sarcoma and comes to believe that she can overcome her diagnosis with a regimen of coffee enemas and a juice-heavy diet. Aisha Dee (The Bold Type) plays Milla’s close friend, who meets Belle at an event and initially senses a comrade — before their budding partnership curdles into a crusading sense of suspicion.
“What we’ve tried to do in this series is to show that none of these issues are entirely black and white — we wanted it to live in the grey zone,” Strauss told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month at Netflix’s new Australian headquarters in Sydney. “It’s about showing what it’s like to be a young woman coping with the weightiest issues — life and death — but also staying open to the humor in the hardest moments.”
Apple Cider Vinegar is directed by Jeffrey Walker (The Clearing, The Artful Dodger, Modern Family). Additional cast includes Ashley Zukerman (Succession), Mark Coles Smith (Mystery Road: Origin), Susie Porter (Irreverent), Matt Nable (Transfusion), Phoenix Raei (The Night Agent), Chai Hansen (Night Sky), Richard Davies (Offspring), Kieran Darcy-Smith (Mr. Inbetween), Catherine McClements (Total Control) and Essie Davis (Game of Thrones).
See-Saw Films’ Liz Watts, Helen Gregory, Emile Sherman and Iain Canning executive produce, alongside Picking Scabs’ Samantha Strauss, Louise Gough and Dever. Yvonne Collins is credited as a producer.