Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s new documentary, You Can See Everything, explores the life of disgraced Theranos founder and convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes. Roughly a third of the way through the film, viewers see Holmes posing for more than 200 cameras. Fielder’s movie is a wholly unique and revolutionary one. The latter of whom released “ Primetime ” also under the A24 banner last month, “You Can See Everything” is somehow visually gorgeous and yet profoundly ugly — almost intentionally s, co-directed by Fielder and Oppenheim. Replete with zits, wrinkles and sweat on Fielder and Holmes, as if we’re studying them under a microscope, much of it is filmed in extreme close-up. Fielder is a refreshingly candid guide through this strange land.
Before reporting to a federal prison in 2023, Holmes had her likeness scanned and captured so she could be reproduced via artificial intelligence, holograms, and video while incarcerated. The move serves a business purpose as she and partner William “Billy” Evans launch a new healthcare startup known as Theranos 2.0, potentially utilizing an AI version of Holmes for pitches. However, the film also captures her crying and sobbing about her past public exposure, stating she has a weird history with being on camera. With whom she shares two children, are launching a new healthcare startup (which they refer to as Theranos 2.0), and it might be useful to have access to a version of Holmes that can be programmed, say, to give pitches, it’s partly a business decision — she and partner William “Billy” Evans. “The world believes a reality about me that isn’t true.
The pre-release buzz for the secretly produced movie has been massive, following a surprise trailer drop. Some critics have labeled it the movie of the year or speculated about a possible best picture Oscar nomination. US theaters opened the film on Friday. Audiences now have their turn to see what all the fuss is about, with the film opening in theaters across the US on Friday.
The film offers unprecedented access to Holmes and her family before her incarceration, featuring striking creative choices. Fielder compares Holmes to a magician and questions if she is the most manipulative person ever lived. As well as some truly jaw-dropping creative decisions later in the movie, the film is gripping and shocking, thanks to the unparalleled access to Holmes and her family in the days before her incarceration (at one point we even see Evans showering nude). It is a bold, perhaps impossible, quest for truth about someone whom Fielder compares to a magician. As a revelatory sequence involving Holmes’ reaction to the Abbott and Costello “Who’s On First” sketch seems to suggest, someone who may be on the spectrum and incapable of understanding how others perceive her words. In these programs, Fielder plays both the straight man and the chaos agent, often appearing like an alien in human disguise sent to study our most inexplicable behavior, even if it means meddling in things himself. If Fielder is again playing a version of himself here, Holmes seems to be offering near infinite versions of herself up for examination, like a set of unblinking reflections in a hall of funhouse mirrors. We often see the crew and their boom mics, as they work to create something that ultimately mixes reality and recreation, fact and fiction, as befitting Fielder’s style for leaning into artifice. He’s open about his insecurities as to why Holmes wanted him to capture her — does his lack of scientific understanding mean he’ll be an easy mark? — and the movie offers the case that he may have grown too close to or fond of his subject. As if she knows the Herculean task he has ahead of him in trying to make sense of her, it’s she who is encouraging him.
Fielder brings his signature style of elaborate schemes, awkwardness, and meta-narratives, reminiscent of his previous shows Nathan for You and The Rehearsal. Meanwhile, Holmes presents endless versions of herself, leaving audiences to question whether she is simply eccentric, a victim of the men in her life, on the spectrum, or a compulsive liar. It’s a question that hovers over the entire production and one that isn’t easily answered.
Co-directed by Fielder and Oppenheim, the visual style alternates between gorgeous and intentionally stark, utilizing extreme close-ups that highlight physical imperfections while openly displaying camera crews and boom microphones.
A surprise figure introduced midway through the film transforms the narrative entirely, while Fielder navigates his own insecurities about his subject. As Holmes prepares to leave for a federal prison in Texas, Fielder injects characteristic awkwardness by suggesting a gag gift of hair dye and sunglasses, before an unexpected role reversal where Holmes encourages Fielder with the words You’ve got this. Rarely, if ever, has a documentarian and subject been so perfectly matched. A surprise person appears halfway through the movie — one being kept a closely guarded secret from audiences and which we won’t spoil here — but whose presence transforms it entirely, emerging as both co-documentarian an.
