Medium: Apple Cider Vinegar
Be warned, many spoilers below.
Welcome to Medium, the silent book club where I do all the talking (writing) so you don’t have to. Every month, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on a piece of work that has inspired me or just needs to be talk about. These editions will contain spoilers so beware if you haven’t yet consumed the content. I hope you enjoy, Sian x
Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix
Do you remember when you first became aware of Belle Gibson? Did you follow her on Instagram in its prehistoric era or have her app, The Whole Pantry, pre-downloaded onto your new Apple Watch? Or were you like me, aware of her on the periphery until the story of her fraud and lies exploded over the media and took permanent residency your brain? There seems to be people in two camps: those who were aware of her in some capacity and some who are simply, not. And to those people, I ask: how did the iconic pink turtleneck not burn itself into your brain for all eternity?
To me, it is this specific piece of clothing which was the peak of Belle’s infamy and the iconic 2015 60 Minutes interview with Tara Brown that accompanied it. It was the first screenshot of Apple Cider Vinegar that I saw and got me really, really excited to watch the story of one of Australia’s biggest scammers. And when the sixth and final episode started and I saw the portrayal of this big moment in Belle’s spectacular fall from grace, I was . . . underwhelmed. There was so much leading up to this interview and for those who were following the saga back in the 2010’s, it was a real gotcha moment, a bit of vindication for those who had been harmed by Belle. But when the show only briefly focussed on it and instead wrapped up the series with a positive leaning, boring as fuck montage of the characters, I was like, what the fuck? Even the little factoid at the end interrupted by Kaitlyn Dever as Belle telling us to Google the whole thing fell flat.
It’s taken me some time to think about what about this show has me feeling a little off. Firstly, do not watch it thinking that it’s a factual representation of true events (see below for resources on this). Even the production team at Netflix is careful by getting the actors to break the fourth wall in each episode by telling the audience that “this is a true story based on a lie”, which I think is a big ass-covering measure post-Baby Reindeer. Stylistically, this didn’t grate and I think it was done in moderation enough that it didn’t feel tired by the end. The frothy bits didn’t throw me too much, either: the main characters dancing to Britney’s Toxic, the bottles of apple cider vinegar exploding, the pink scratchy font used as overlay to indicate Belle’s text messages. These elements of fun are fine but taking the series as a whole, it felt like there were two creative forces behind the series: one that wanted to give it the fun Hollywood treatment and the other that wanted to amplify the emotional gut punches and high-stakes nature of events in the series. It felt like Mom and Dad were fighting and no one knew who was in charge.
There are a lot of reasons to love this series, though. A soundtrack filled with absolute bangers, particularly from the time the show is set, had me humming and singing along constantly. The costuming was immaculate too, especially for a show that could have easily glossed over this fact and not bothered with it at all. Special mentions go to the pink turtlencek (duh), Milla’s blue, tight-yet-fringed awards ceremony dress (I would have worn it back in 2013) and Belle’s book launch dress (authentic to the time, feels like Zhivago or Alice McCall).
The acting is phenomenal, particularly the performance by Kaitlyn Dever as Belle. I think her Australian accent is the best I’ve seen/heard on screen by an actor, ever. She clearly worked hard at it and those vowels were flat as fuck and impeccable. Alicia Debnam-Carey was a standout as Milla but the performance by Matt Nable who plays Milla’s Dad Joe, was heartwrenching. His portrayal as an angry, scared and grieving husband and father felt very real. A man who is trying to help both his wife and daughter and getting nowhere with them; the frustration and helplessness bleeding into you as you watch on, sensing what’s coming for this family.
Whoever wrote the family interactions in this series knew what they were doing with Belle and her mother, too. The scenes where Belle is home in Brisbane for her Mum’s wedding are uncomfortable and great at creating a moral tension in your feelings towards her: you know she’s a liar but you feel sympathy for her unstable upbringing. It’s the same duality you face when you consider Milla’s, and her Mum’s health journey: the right for bodily and medical autonomy to make your own choices about your health despite it being against conventional medical advice. You know the juice cleanse and coffee enemas ain’t gonna cure that cancer, babe.
But what about those granular moments, the moments within scenes, that made you shudder? Belle holding the door closed on her screaming child or the discomfort of watching her young son enter a ‘doctor’s’ office unaccompanied. Belle inserting herself into a vulnerable conversation at Milla’s book event, meeting Fiona and Hunter (the boy with cancer and his Mum) outside the hospital. Milla unwrapping her bandages to see her festering skin and her tumours returning (as if Arlo didn’t know sooner that it was getting worse??). Milla’s Mum letting her make medical decisions for her, Milla’s Dad in the oncologists office vacillating between heartbreak and rage. Belle inserting herself at the wake, Belle faking the seizure at her son’s birthday party, Belle belittling and manipulating Clive (he’s an idiot, anyway). Belle constantly doing unethical and horrible things to the people around her.
These were all necessary moments to show the depth of Belle’s personality given the very dramatised version of events we see in the show but after watching it, I wonder if they took it too far. Obviously we have little idea what Belle was like away from the public but from media, she often came across softly spoken, demure and very ‘nice’, which makes her scam all the more sinister and enthralling. It’s easy to despise someone who is mean or bitchy to other people, in public or private, and I wonder if the show could have leaned into the subtlety of the real-life Belle for greater impact. I think this is why the miscarriage scene feels unnecessary to me. I understand it’s context in the storytelling, with so much evidence staking up against her, you need something enormous to humanise Belle’s character. But I think it could have been cut down or restrained, sometimes what is not shown is more harrowing than seeing it visually on screen. And maybe it’s also because I’m pregnant and at a similar gestational stage to Belle at the moment, but it was done with all the subtlety of a thrown axe.
This is where the show falls apart a little for me, in the over-dramatised moments and caricatures created. In the first half of the series, I loved the foil of Justin (the journalist) and Lucy’s storyline, representing conventional cancer treatment and the fear and tension that keeps building within their marriage. But as soon as Lucy goes to South America it all just disintegrates and gets really corny in the end. The remaining scenes with her feel unnecessary despite a very reliable source telling me the representation of the ayahuasca ceremony and Lucy’s ‘journey’ as scarily accurate. It feels like a cheap shot to make Justin the journalist investigating Belle at the same time. You don’t need to have your spouse dying of cancer to muster the motivation to go after Belle Gibson, the fact that she’s a piece of shit is pretty clear to everyone watching.
Similarly, I found the characterisation of health professionals in the show frustrating. The consistent portrayal of medical doctors in the series as dismissive, lacking in empathy, combative or impatient, is in my opinion, a damaging one. It’s not untrue, I have dealt with dickheads in this space just like everyone else, but is it the majority? No. And I think the two minuscule moments where they humanised the doctors (Lucy’s oncologist saying she hated wellness warriors and Milla’s oncologist sitting in his office alone after the meeting with Milla and her Dad) weren’t enough. Contrast this with the bedside manner of ‘Dr Phil’, who despite being completely batshit is gentle and displaying incredible empathy with Belle as he sells her on a $10,000 ‘treatment’ for her fake illness or the well-meaning hippie selling Milla the black salve (grim). It’s well-trodden ground that both Milla and Belle are eschewing conventional medicine, albeit for different reasons, and in Milla’s case in particular, turning to alternative methods. But the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ overlays to these two different groups of fringe characters feels lazy. Give the audience the benefit of the doubt to see the underlying grey areas here because the reality of these situations rarely follow a moral binary.
This brings me to my biggest gripes: the character of Heck and the name of the show. The whole PR crisis dude storyline pushes the content too far for me. Remove him completely and get the episodes down to under and hour each. He does not add anything meaningful to the show, especially not the title which comes from a story he tells in his AA meeting about Belle chugging apple cider vinegar to treat her ringworm. What?? It feels nonsensical and the reference comes far too late in the show to land properly. Honestly, the names ‘The Purge’ or ’Toxic’ would have fit better. We didn’t need to see Heck doing lines of coke in the bathroom at work or sweating profusely at his kid’s birthday party or being lured in by Belle’s charm; none of it pays off for me. It smacks of Shonda Rhimes and not in a good way.
It’s a good show, nonetheless. You’ll enjoy it for the ride it is and maybe a little less if you’re quite familiar with the content like me. It makes you think about the lure of ‘wellness’ culture, how a pretty facade can reveal a rot beneath. The duality of a big, lucrative movement with good intentions becoming something insidious when it reaches too far from general wellbeing and optimisation into attempting to cure cancer. I wish it were that easy. We’d all be shoving coffee up our arses if it was.
The best bits
The acting
The phenomenal Aussie accent
Belle singing Roar at her book launch (cringe)
The entire funeral/wake bit
The actress who plays Tara Brown (wow)
Kylie and Britney on the same soundtrack
More, please
There’s quite a few podcasts that have covered this whole saga by now but here are a few that I’ve listened to if you want more on the entire scam and ensuing legal case. Just The Gist had a really great episode on it but have been sadly deleted recently. There’s also a book by two of the journalists who broke a massive story on Belle, but I reckon this is easier to consume via audio media. And if you haven’t watched the famous 60 Minutes interview with Tara Brown, I highly recommend watching the awkwardness and original pink turtleneck IRL.
Podcasts
Book
The Woman Who Fooled The World: the true story of fake wellness guru Belle Gibson by Beau Donnelly and Nick Toscano
Media
Will write about something happier next week,
Sian x
It made for a good show - not amazing but definitely very watchable and definitely made me think about how much truth is really out there.