Kaitlyn Dever in Netflix Scammer Saga

What exactly do you hope to feel at the end of a fraudster saga?

Are you looking forward to being amused by the fraudster’s boldness? Disgusting that you have (almost) got away with it? Perhaps you would like to experience a fair outrage about the damage you have inflicted on others, or the satisfaction to know that you would I never fell on it. Do you want the bad people to be punished? Celebrated? A little bit of both, somehow immediately?

If you are not sure – it doesn’t seem that Netflixs Apple cider vinegar. The basis on a T-True story drama are in time, sound and topic all over time, and serves a bit of everything, but not enough of anything to completely sink our teeth.

The fraudster in question is Belle Gibson (Kaitlyn Dever, who accepts a solid Australian accent), an influencer who became famous all over the world in 2012 because she had healed her own brain cancer by avoiding conventional medical treatment in favor of healthy eating. Your journey is so inspiring that she incorporated it into a wellness mini empire, including a bestseller app with a cookbook on the way, so that everything fell down in 2014 when it turned out that she had faked her illness all the time.

This is not a spoiler: the hourly premiere already finds Belle in the middle of her scandal and advocates her crisis -Pr manager (Phoenix Raei) that she is innocent, that she can fix it, that she was simply misunderstood. From there Apple cider vinegar‘S six chapters jump between the “ascent” part of Belles Bogen and the “case”, with occasional flashing to scenes that we have already seen or have not yet seen, or detour to previous points in their biography.

Belle’s Tale is connected to the simultaneous Milla (Alycia Debnam-Carey), another young and beautiful influencer who makes a career to explain how she defeated cancer with a strict nutritional scheme. The difference is that Milla (obviously inspired by “Wellness Warrior” Jessica Ainscough) Is sick and really does Buy what you sell.

Also throughout Lucy (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), a breast cancer patient with the ungrateful task, to serve as a generic deputy for the kind of person who could fall in love with in Belle and Millas snake oil and Justin (Justin (Mark Coles Smith) , her journalist husband.

If the multi -jumped approach can become terribly frenetic, it is a piece with the narrative that she does not speak – one that is rooted in the rhythms of social media, where they can skip a rabbit hole between stories with a thumb film or a senseless click. The Instagram mood of the mid-2010s is reinforced or commented by the floods of emoji that draw the screen aware of the screen, while Belle and Milla drink or shrink from criticism.

The aesthetics are unfortunately also for Apple cider vinegarMuch in accordance with the rash of smooth and stylized grifter stories from 2022. Anna inventedAnna Delvey or WrappedAdam Neumann.

Do not understand me wrong: as always, as always, it nails the head spin mixture out of false modesty, extravagant flattery and self -pity -like tears that Belle uses to shift useful markings such as her long -term friend (Ashley) (Ashley Zukerman) or her Editor (Catherine McClements).

But the psychological portrait is not so deep and the greatest developments in her career as a fraudster, such as her idea of ​​starting her entire pantry app, apparently strike out of the blue. It is not particularly interesting to see how you can think of these plans to see how she can get away with them.

The decision to focus primarily on Belle is at the expense of the more nuanced material around you. Milla takes on a fascinating position both as an ignorant perpetrator and as an unfortunate victim of her own bullshit, but your emotional arch is somewhat underloaded despite a wide range of screen. It is primarily there to serve as more likeable film by Belle.

Even if Aisha Dees Chanelle acts as a connection between all different action lines of the show – she is Milla’s best friend And Belles assistant And A key figure in the fall of the latter – we only receive limited access to your perspective.

In his smartest moments, Apple cider vinegar indicates that Belle is more of a symptom of a toxic system than the disease itself. Milla – A young woman who feels disillusioned by doctors who treat her like a unruly child and even lead talks about her treatment to her father instead of her father – finds false security in quacks that sell fineas and juice cleans. It seriously encourages others to do the same and lays the foundation for direct fraudsters like Belle to take these ideas even further.

A credible medium enables you to eat your lies and even reward you. At some point, Belle and Milla are for the same award that celebrates “funny, fearless women” in the shop.

It is enough to awaken anger at the gruesome opportunism of Belles Griff, frustration about those who were based on this “wellness” lies, heartache for those who have lost their money or life as a result. And it is enough to wish that the series of all these fronts and less would have come across the idea of ​​Belle as a unique monster. In the end, her story turns out to be familiar. She is just another opportunist who tears through a vulnerable community and leaves the destruction.