TV Show Review - Apple Cider Vinegar (Limited Series)

Season: Limited Series
Genre: Drama/ Crime
Number of episodes: 6
Year: 2025
Starring: Kaitlyn Dever, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Aisha Dee, Mark Coles Smith, Tilda Cobham-Herbey, Chai Hansen, Matt Nable, Ashley Zukerman

Description: The life of wellness guru Belle Guru (Kaitlyn Dever), who had a large social media following, where she pretended she pretended to be suffering from cancer but keeping the disease under control using self-are therapies. She confesses that none of it was true.

Review: The Australian series “Apple Cider Vinegar” is loosely based on the true story of wellness influencer Belle Gibson, who was exposed by two journalists in 2015. Among other things, she led her followers to believe that she had cured her brain tumor with healthy eating, exercise and holistic medicine.

Every episode starts with a disclaimer, that Belle Gibson did snot ger paid for this telling of her story. And the rise and fall of Belle Gibson starts, where a true story is told, based on a lie.

On Instagram, everything seems perfect. After roughly fifteen years, the app still hasn’t lost that distorted view of the world. Meanwhile, influencers are under strict scrutiny, but that hasn’t always been the case. Belle Gibson’s story takes the cake. Australian Belle Gibson was diagnosed with brain cancer when she was 20. Fortunately, she is not sitting back and, like her great role model Milla, decides to take a different approach. No surgeries, no hospitals and no chemo, but healthy juices, vegan food and lots of exercise. That, according to Belle, is the cure for cancer. She shares all her findings with thousands of followers on Instagram, develops the app The Whole Pantry and is writing a cookbook. It sounds too good to be true, cure cancer with a nutritious diet. And that’s because it is. Where Milla is actually going through cancer, believing she can beat it by living a healthier life. Belle made it all up, just for some attention. And the whole world fell for it. Until her lies were exposed by journalists.

“Apple Cider Vinegar” tells a lot. It deals with Belle’s mental problems, the rivalry she has with Milla, the research the journalists try to do to expose the influencer, and with the story of Lucy, who has breast cancer, it also deals with a lot with the impact this disease actually has. Milla and Lucy are fictional, Belle is real. And even though the stories of Milla and Lucy are interesting, the story of Belle would have been enough.

Kaitlyn Dever does a wonderful job as Belle. It’s very easy to portray belle as an evil woman with an attention disorder. Dever doesn’t do that. She gives Belle depth and humanity, but at the same time she makes clear that the only one Belle really cares about is herself. This series wasn’t made to feel sympathy for Belle.

Although the series often shoors off in all sorts of direction, Kaitlyn Dever provides a clear focus for her character. A story so crazy, that’s you almost wouldn’t believe was true, if you didn’t know it.