To simply characterize the new feature from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim as a documentary would miss the point. It presents as one, but then becomes a kaleidoscopic mix of journalistic inquiry, reality show, performance art, satire and cringe humor, all the while respecting and enhancing the process of documentary filmmaking. As one of its principals rather casually suggests, “It’s very complicated.” It’s also clinical.
The co-directors have a fascinating and enigmatic subject in Elizabeth Holmes, the co-founder and chief executive of Theranos, the Silicon Valley medical technology firm, now serving an eleven-year prison sentence for criminal fraud. She and her partner, Billy Evans, granted Fielder and Oppenheim extraordinary access in the five weeks leading to the start of her detention, back in 2023. With all of them living under the same roof at a California beach house, a dance of perception and manipulation ensues. Evans dares to call it “radical transparency.” Really?
The fourth wall fails to survive the movie’s first act. When not revealing Fielder and his protagonists in awkwardly close-up, back-and-forth exchanges, the camera finds him lurking around corners, in hallways and on the deck, observing and contemplating Holmes and Evans in a voyeuristic kind of way. Cue the cringe, a Fielder specialty on both Canadian (Nathan For You) and American (The Rehearsal) television.
Mind you, Fielder, a Vancouver, BC native and University of Victoria graduate, has his doubts from the outset, wondering aloud whether Holmes merely intends to use the project as a means of alleging her innocence and confirming her veracity. As she claims never to have told a lie in her entire life–not even a white lie–her face exudes wide-eyed naivete. You may be seeing “everything,” yet you may not believe it. Fielder shows Holmes and Evans the classic Abbott and Costello baseball-themed comedy routine Who’s On First? She looks puzzled and unamused, apparently not getting the joke, or even the concept of the joke, despite her penchant for semantic games.
All the while, the couple take care of their two young children and try to launch Theranos 2.0, as if to insist on the viability of their widely discredited enterprise. Evans emerges as the villain–or alternate villain–of the story, supplanting and manipulating Holmes in the kitchen and online. However, lest you think that lends credence to her legal defense, the movie leaves open the possibility that the two of them may be conspiring to fabricate these scenes to sway public opinion.
Fielder and Oppenheim employ a long-established technique associated with both investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking. With the verbal exchanges constantly suspended on probing questions and awkward notes, the camera lingers on faces for an extra few beats, waiting for a blink, a twitch, a smile–any kind of clue or resolution. It never really comes. Proximity doesn’t guarantee intimacy, much less the “truth.”
Nathan Fielder has gone down this road before, just not to this degree. He clearly relishes making himself a protagonist–often a self-analyzing protagonist–repeatedly stepping into the frame to engage (or confuse) his often unwitting subjects. He wants you to question your own assumptions, grapple with elusive concepts such as truth and empathy, and feel uncomfortable. Orson Welles accomplished as much with his clever essay on art and authenticity, F for Fake (1973).
Cinematographer David Bolen also shot Oppenheim’s Primetime, which showcases its own unsettling lead performance, courtesy of Robert Pattinson. Here he employs a combination of hand-held and tripod imagery, melding fluid exchanges with artificial, if well curated, stagings.
Elizabeth Holmes reports to a minimum-security Texas facility about halfway through this nearly three-hour-long movie. (Its length may be one of its few weaknesses.) You immediately realize, though, that the “meta” dimensions to this exercise have only just begun. She still occupies a central place in this production, only she essentially morphs into an actress who claimed an Emmy Award for portraying Elizabeth Holmes on premium cable. Time to re-focus. Time to skip the next paragraph as well, if you want to fully enjoy the ride.
Imagine, if you would, Amanda Seyfried watching the real Elizabeth Holmes watching Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes in the fictionalized miniseries The Dropout (2022). Imagine Seyfried cringing at Holmes wincing at what she sees of her character on the small screen. Imagine Holmes betraying real vulnerability in that moment, or at least apparently so. Imagine Seyfried taking notes from Fielder about her performance, then refining her line reading with him in both podcast and fireside sequels. Oh, and while you’re at it, consider that the Seyfried-Fielder scenes play out on sets carefully constructed to replicate the actual venues where these moments would have otherwise happened in the life of Elizabeth Holmes. Yes, that requires a lot of imagination, and that’s where much of the brilliance of this picture lies–no pun intended.
By the end of You Can See Everything, you’ve experienced a lot–much of it having to do with the grammar of cinema itself–but, honestly, you’ve haven’t learned a whole lot more about Elizabeth Holmes. Indeed, even if you haven’t seen Federico Fellini’s Academy Award-winning 8 ½ (1963), you can appreciate that director’s alter ego, Guido, telling a producer-critic, “How would you like to see a film in which nothing ever happens? In my movies, everything happens.” It does here, too, and it sustains one of this year’s best films in any genre. Really.
