Netflix Doc ‘Bad Vegan’ Tells a Culinary Crime Story, but Can’t Locate the Truth: TV Review
16.03.2022 - 17:49
/ variety.com
Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticNetflix has once again found a criminal case whose oddity, extremity, and seeming delusion make for an interesting story. “Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud.
Fugitives” — the director of which, Chris Smith, executive produced “Tiger King” and helmed “Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened,” both previously on the streamer — certainly has that to its credit. Sarma Melngailis, a celebrated raw-food chef with a burgeoning restaurant under her control, fell from a perch atop the New York culinary establishment after draining her restaurant’s funds to pay her husband Anthony Strangis, eventually going on the lam with him before being discovered in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, after the couple ordered — irony alert — a Domino’s pizza. From the enigma of what motivates us to a rise-and-fall narrative to — yes — the pleasures of schadenfreude, the materials for a fascinating tale are here.
And Melngailis’ journey, culminating in her arrest for fraud, certainly bears the fascination of tragedy. She narrates her story to the camera in the present day, but is unable to account for how or why, precisely, she fell into a pairing with someone who so clearly had her worst interests at heart, who treated her and her passion-project vegan eatery as a sponge to be squeezed for more and more money. Perhaps she’s not the person to ask: Smith relies on journalist Allen Salkin, whose 2016 article about the case for Vanity Fair animated the story for many readers.
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