The main reason to watch Apple Cider Vinegar is Kaitlyn Dever, who is well on her way to a long and exciting career. She has already proven her talent in films like Booksmart, Short Term 12, and No One Will Save You (we’ll forgive her for Ticket to Paradise). Dever also earned acclaim in the Netflix series Unbelievable and received an Emmy nomination for her performance in Dopesick.
In Apple Cider Vinegar, she expands her résumé with a villainous role—a bold move for any young star in their 20s looking to build a fanbase in an era once dominated by yearly rom-coms. However, with the streaming wars digging up every possible story for content, Dever graduates to a role based on a true story as vile as they come. She finds the human side of such villainy, a feat that is no small task.
You just wish the rest of the series could have matched the talents of its star.
Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar follows Belle Gibson (Kaitlyn Dever), a so-called wellness “expert” who leveraged online and social media platforms to claim she had cured cancer—including her own—through alternative medicine. Along with her friend Milla (The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart’s Alycia Debnam-Carey), they use their media presence to promote the supposed benefits of alternative treatments—the kind that, according to them, big pharma doesn’t want the world to know about.
Now, this is a true story, so major spoilers ahead. The script—written by creator Samantha Strauss (Nine Perfect Strangers)—centers on the ultimate betrayal. Milla and her mother (Little Fish’s Susie Porter) turn their backs on prescribed medicine, which offers significantly higher survival rates, with devastating consequences. The series attempts to use this storyline to make the ethical dilemma of medicine versus profit feel more personal—as if there weren’t already widespread mistrust in professional medicine and healthcare insurance, to begin with.
Apple Cider Vinegar is based on the true crimes of Belle Gibson, a convicted pseudoscience advocate and scammer from Australia. The story follows Gibson, who falsely claimed to have cured multiple forms of cancer through alternative medicine therapies, including diet, exercise, and other natural remedies. However, she took her deception even further, asserting that she had personally cured herself of several types of cancer using her own methods—proving to be a modern-day snake oil saleswoman of her time.
The third hook was her promise to donate profits to numerous charities. The series also delves into an even more tragic aspect of the story—her followers abandoned proven cancer treatments with documented 10-year survival rates. One such case is Jessica Ainscough, on whom the character Milla is based. Ainscough, an Australian teen magazine editor known as “The Wellness Warrior,” tragically passed away at age 29. Given her young age, she might have had a significantly higher survival rate had she followed physician-prescribed treatments.
Apple Cider Vinegar is not worth watching despite Kaitlyn Dever’s charismatic performance, which brings unprecedented emotional complexity. There is a subtle but profoundly unsettling transformation as the series explores the thin line between ego and desperation. Much like Netflix’s true crime series Inventing Anna, the show attempts to humanize its lead by shifting blame onto external forces for her selfish, toxic, and manipulative choices—ultimately undercutting the story’s impact.
This propagation of its message only amplifies the lack of conviction between Strauss and director Jeffrey Walker (The Cleaning). The framework, which jumps around too many times, becomes disorienting for the viewer and places too much faith in unproven accusations from the accused. I’m all for seeing crimes through the villain’s eyes, but by doing so, the issue of accountability falls to the wayside, leaving the viewer without a clear sense of redemption to hold onto.
Unfortunately, Apple Cider Vinegar’s story has little justification for its actions.
You can only stream Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix!
Kaitlyn Dever shines in Apple Cider Vinegar, but the rest of this Netflix limited series lacks real luster.
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I am a film and television critic and a proud member of the Las Vegas Film Critic Society, Critics Choice Association, and a 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes/Tomato meter approved. However, I still put on my pants one leg at a time, and that’s when I often stumble over. When I’m not writing about movies, I patiently wait for the next Pearl Jam album and pass the time by scratching my wife’s back on Sunday afternoons while she watches endless reruns of California Dreams. I was proclaimed the smartest reviewer alive by actor Jason Isaacs, but I chose to ignore his obvious sarcasm. You can also find my work on InSession Film, Ready Steady Cut, Hidden Remote, Music City Drive-In, Nerd Alert, and Film Focus Online.
