Bad Vegan Review

2022 | TV-MA | 3h 29m

Chris Smith’s Bad Vegan is a Netflix documentary series that describes in detail how vegan restaurant owner Sarma Melngailis unlawfully funneled money to her partner in return for him paying a false god to award them eternal life. Melngailis and her eatery Pure Food and Wine, a chirpy Manhattan place that had been at the frontline of the “raw foods” craze and a famous celebrities hot spot, are highlighted in the series. Melngailis had the admirable appearance of a stylish, spotless way of life; her two manuscripts from 2005 and 2009, which heavily marketed uncooked recipe ideas to gain attention, showcased a photo of herself on the cover looking flirty and content, the image of a vegan vitality, clarification, and wellness.

Melngailis met a guy on the internet in 2011 who cast an alluring magical spell over her, and easily duped her into attempting to steal capital from companies and staff members. Melngailis had suddenly disappeared from New York with this partner, Anthony Strangis, who was an obstinate gambling addict who’d managed to convince Melngailis that if she managed to pass a sequence of long and arduous sentimental exams, including sexual degeneration and providing financial resources, he would indeed be willing to immortalize her and her dearly beloved pit bull Leon. Melngailis’ borrowings added up to approximately $6 million, along with $400 thousand hoaxed from her mom by Strangis. In May 2016, the pair was taken into custody at a guest house near Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Melngailis agreed to plead guilty to grand theft, felonious tax evasion, and a swindling strategy, while Strangis admitted guilt to multiple charges of fourth-degree felony theft. Melngailis ended up serving four months, and Strangis a year at Rikers Island.

A few questions remain unanswered from this illustration. Most notably, we have no understanding of how Strangis indoctrinated Melngailis or if he did. What we understand from his tone on audio tapes is that of extreme extortion, and it’s tough to hear. What Melngailis recounts regarding his pledges to use paranormal skills to help her and her dog attain eternal life seem to require Strangis’ explanation, as does her spell-like recalling of their disappearance voyage. A chyron at the end of the first act suggests that he refused to take part in the docu-series, choosing to leave definite fundamental questions about the scenario unaddressed. His apparent reclusiveness generates ambiguity, which is aggravated by Bad Vegan’s lack of understanding considering the context of Melngailis’ story.

The story reads that as a leader in the raw foods movement, Melngailis may have been especially susceptible to manipulation, as the conversation about celestial bodies and horoscopes highlight this argument. But, even at 4 hours worth of episodes, there is very little effort being made to examine what precisely about Melngailis’ eatery introduced her to this cult. Rather, it is content to simply examine the situation’s public preconceptions.

Even though the tv series includes interview sessions with a slew of Melngailis’ former affiliates and mates, a numerous amount of Pure Food and Wine staff members recall a lauded employer recognized all over her kitchen as “Sarmama.” The majority of the series runs circles around Melngailis’ interview which becomes more mysterious as she digs into higher levels of detail. Melngailis commonly tends to speak detachedly, almost in a catatonic state; she shuttles what seems to be absolutely devastating in the passive phrase, for example – “Whatever sexual relationship we used to have was not the one that I wished.” There seems to be a lot regarding her time on the move with Strangis that she didn’t communicate or just simply cannot recollect. Another interviewee says her detachment and impaired memory are comparable to those of people who survive cults.

Bad Vegan is not trying to garner sympathy, but it does try and copy the normal dysfunctional relationship archetype. Menaces and vanishing finances become a slippery slope, a progression that has been foreshadowed from the beginning. Bad Vegan brings together a lot of opinions, which makes it easier to avoid trying to frame this storyline as a romantic drama gone horribly wrong. Maybe its greatest decision is to highlight how desensitizing the ramping stress is on Sarma herself. It appears to be trying to reconstruct Sarma’s feelings of tiredness and unhappiness as the answer for complete absence of a sensible conclusion.

Bad Vegan did strike a fine balance between the legitimate dorky sense of wonder and compassion for its subject’s sufferings, but it acknowledges that something awful happened to Melngailis and encourages us to directly observe the consequences of her initial response. It has morality rapidly spread around it, for her and her innocent victims, whom she deceived to settle her alleged offender. Nevertheless, the indeterminacy of responses to “why” and the failure to make “Bad Vegan” about larger issues regarding the reality of things or perhaps even the specific details of Melngailis’ universe make the documentary series ultimately annoying. 4 hours is too long to splurge operating through such a particular set of information with a strict cap about how far we can investigate.

There’s a natural tendency to identify Sarma’s narrative as one with disturbing plot twists, or as one that relates to the recent string of truthful exteriors that include both a phenomenal growth and a remarkable crash down. However, there is a sense of loss and upsetting feeling here which overwhelms any keen interest in the exceptional. Irrespective of how the numerous donators of this project end up classifying Sarma’s remorse, no one is actually delivering their individual judgement with a positive voice.