Producers: Nathan Fielder, Lance Oppenheim, Tatiana Bears, Maggie Ambrose and Jack Davis Directors: Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim Cast: Nathan Fielder, Elizabeth Holmes, Billy Evans, Amanda Seyfried and Christopher Abbott Distributor: A24
Grade: B
That the truth can be a slippery thing is hardly a revolutionary idea, nor one absent from documentaries. Admittedly, some adopt a tone of omniscience, reporting events as stable and unquestioned (e.g., the Ken Burns model). But many, especially those dealing with real crime, must admit, even if grudgingly, that the truth can’t be known with certainty. In that respect “You Can See Everything” isn’t revolutionary.
Its distinction lies instead in attitude. As one might expect of a film in which Nathan Fielder plays an important—arguably the major—role, the film has a large “meta” component, calling into question the very nature of a documentary in general and of this one in particular. It also contains a substantial amount of humor, mostly of the deadpan variety for which Fielder is so well known.
What it most assuredly is not, is a detailed account of the scandal that brought down Theranos, the medical technology company that Holmes founded in 2003 and remained the face of, until it collapsed in 2018 after investigations by journalists and regulators undermined its claims to breakthroughs in diagnostics through the testing of small blood samples by the firm’s proprietary devices, most notably the so-called “Edison Machine.” Holmes and her former romantic partner (and Theranos COO) Ramesh Balwani were both indicted on charges of fraud and conspiracy and convicted in 2022. If one needs a refresher course in the unhappy business, Alex Gibney’s 2019 HBO documentary “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley” provides a good overview, and in the end it shares some of the observations reached here.
In fact “You Can See Everything” presumes some familiarity with the Theranos saga, beginning only in 2023, a little over a month before Holmes was scheduled to begin her prison term in a minimum-security federal facility in Bryan, Texas. She and her new partner, Billy Evans, invited Fielder and his team, which includes co-director Lance Oppenheim, to interview them at their rented beach house in California. They offered “radical transparency,” eventually even inviting Fielder to move in with them and their two children, an opportunity he seized on. Thus the title, which refers to both the filmmakers’ “unrestricted” view of Holmes—and by extension ours, too—and an understanding of her that would presumably result.
The first half of the three-hour film provides excerpts from Fielder’s time with Holmes and Evans. It immerses us not in facts but impressions, many of them contradictory and elusive, with Holmes, wide-eyed (virtually unblinking) and veering from a vacuous smile to easy tears, frequently eliciting looks of incredulity from Fielder (whose reactions, with mouth agape, are frequently shown in close-up). She denies ever lying (about anything, not just her claims about Theranos technology) and, in one astonishing sequence, says she doesn’t know Abbott and Costello’s famous “Who’s on First” routine and, after being shown it, doesn’t seem to be able to comprehend why it’s funny. The question, of course, is whether she’s showing Fielder who she really is or is cannily manipulating him with a phony self-image.
Then there’s Evans. He seems solicitous and supportive of Holmes, occasionally even interrupting when Fielder appears to be intruding or pushing too hard. But he also comes across as controlling, in one instance grabbing a bowl of eggs from Holmes when he thinks she’s whisking them too weakly and doing the job himself. Fielder is confused about their relationship, and so are we. In fact, the interviewer becomes a third partner in whatever dance is occurring in the house, as hypnotized by Holmes as so many were in Theranos’ heyday. When Evens insists to him that Holmes simply looks at the world differently Fiedler again appears dubious; and when, after an interaction that especially puzzles Fielder, Evans remarks “I know how you feel,” Fielder angrily spits out, “No, you don’t!” His intoxication by Holmes has made him enigmatic too.
By the time Holmes goes off to begin her stint in jail, Fielder’s—and our—puzzlement about whether she’s a master scam artist or a blissfully unaware dupe remains.
The film then jumps ahead to 2025. Holmes is in the Bryan facility, inaccessible to the filmmakers. So Fielder turns to Evans, who, he finds, possesses her power of attorney and answers e-mails sent her in responses filled with profanity. He’s also founded a sort of Theranos 2.0, a blood testing firm called Haemanthus after a South African blood flower. Searching for insight from afar, Fielder consults Amanda Seyfried, the vibrant actress who played Holmes in the mini-series “The Dropout.”
Fielder and Oppenheim also resort to reenactments, employing actors to recreate scenes as needed. One reaches into the past, depicting a meeting the filmmakers and executives from A24 with Evans and Holmes to discuss the project. It was then that Evans demanded a profit-sharing agreement while Holmes was out of the room, part of Fielder’s obsession with determining whether she was aware of the arrangement. The scene is reconstructed in a way that suggests she was complicit in the demand though she denies it.
Even more egregious is how reenactment is employed when Fielder gains permission to enter Bryan for a session with Holmes. No recording is allowed, so the scene must be reconstructed from Fielder’s memory and then staged for the camera. The double remove from documentary directness leaves the question of accuracy up in the air, yet the sequence is pivotal. And even in its present form, it results in more questions than answers.
Thus, Fielder and his cohorts—cinematographer David Bolen, production designer Alex DiGerlando, editor Adam Locke-Norton and composer Ari Balouziann—have contrived a film that expands the Holmes puzzle rather than solving it—a documentary that goes down the Theranos rabbit hole and takes us along for the ride. It’s a fascinating, indeed hypnotic, but ultimately inconclusive journey that in the end may tell us more about the documentarians than their subjects.
So after three hours Elizabeth Holmes remains a tantalizing enigma. No wonder she and Evans named their daughter Invicta.