Everyone’s Talking About You Can See Everything—Here’s Why the Twisty Elizabeth Holmes Documentary Is the Movie to Watch This Year
If you could turn a camera on yourself in a movie theater, what would you see? If you’re watching the new Elizabeth Holmes documentary, You Can See Everything, like I did last week, your face would probably be a mix of shock, bemusement, anger and overall slack-jawed incredulity at how we arrived at this moment in time. Like, what is even happening here?
This strange movie about an equally strange character is mesmerizing, just like Holmes’s deep-welled, occasionally blinking blue eyes that have become a fixture over the last decade or so of her rise and fall. It’s a movie you can’t stop starting at, even as you want to avert your gaze, because it raises so many uncomfortable questions about our current moment, what we value and even reality itself.
The A24 production, directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, opened last weekend with a $15 million box-office haul, the biggest opener for a documentary since Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 back in 2004. It did even better in its second weekend, bringing the doc’s two-week total up to $45 million. It’s also generating Oscar buzz and, due to its novel structure and storytelling technique, debate about whether it can even be considered a documentary at all.
It’s a film that has everyone talking, and you do not want to miss it. Even though it’s nearly three hours long, I’d see it again right now if I wasn’t working. To get you ready to watch the film or discuss it with your friends, we scoured the web for helpful background info, hot takes and the buzziest debates about You Can See Everything. Read on to learn what all the fuss is about and what it says about our world right now.
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What it is
You Can See Everything follows Elizabeth Holmes, the co-founder of Theranos, a company that purported to invent a way to test a single drop of blood for a range of conditions, as she prepares to go to prison for defrauding investors. A darling of the tech industry back in the early 2010s, Holmes was hailed as the youngest female self-made billionaire and became the face of the rapidly emerging confluence of tech and medicine.
The title of the documentary comes from a text message Holmes sent to Fielder, who also appears on camera throughout the film. She and her partner, Billy Evans, with whom she shares two young children, invite Fielder into their home in an attempt to rehabilitate her image, giving the filmmaker wide latitude to document their day-to-day lives. “You can totally see everything,” she texts to Fielder. But can we? As the movie unspools, that initial (some might say feigned) openness begins to feel like a pretext—or even duplicitous.
If you’re familiar with Nathan Fielder, you might think he’s a curious choice for a celebrity rehab. And you’d be right. He’s best known as the creator and star of Comedy Central’s Nathan for You, a satirical take on those shows where business consultants help struggling companies succeed. His signature deadpan affect is on full display in You Can See Everything, his first full-length documentary, as is his ability to go well beyond the surface to expose something deeper.
Still, Holmes’s artifice became confusing during the shoot, even for him. “I remember having this weird experience … where I’m like, she seems so genuine at times,” Fielder told the audience at a New York Film Festival panel discussion. “But then I’m like, no … I know she’s a liar. It was a weird mental thing.”
Who it’s for
Audiences for You Can See Everything will likely vary widely. It’s for people who remember the Theranos scandal, for those who are more interested in what Fielder is up to here and, of course, for anyone who wants to join in on the biggest conversation of the moment.
It’s a quiet film, but there are plenty of times when I legitimately laughed out loud at its audacity. You Can See Everything is hard to describe, but if you like movies that make you think and have a point of view, get yourself to the theater ASAP.
What people are saying
Opinions are overwhelmingly positive yet all over the map, with lots of words like bonkers and mind-bending being floated around. It’s everywhere too: Critics can’t get enough, and the internet is going crazy over the film’s inventive and ironic look at tech culture, our always-online viral reality and moviemaking itself. People are gravitating to it because it’s so much more than a documentary about a disgraced tech billionaire.
Here are some highlights and links to great discussions about this fascinating movie. Be aware that there are some spoilers here, so jump ahead if needed. Here’s what everyone is saying about You Can See Everything.
It’s unlike anything you’ve seen before
A24, the production company behind arthouse megahits like Moonlight, Backrooms and Primetime, has another disruptor on its hands here, and it’s perfect for audiences who are looking for something meatier than the latest superhero sequel. One through line running through A24 movies is the tendency to make small, indie films feel relevant to a broad audience, and this one delivers in spades.
Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman says You Can See Everything is “everything a great movie should be: an experience unlike one you’ve had before, one that lures and enthralls you, and that leaves you feeling different when it’s over.” He compares the excitement to early rock ‘n’ roll and the 1970s film renaissance, when new and evolving art forms were transcendent. It’s “an ecstatic disruption, an adventure of the spirit, one that wakes you up and startles you, that makes you want to see it again.”
Read more on Variety
It could win the Oscar for Best Picture
You read that right: You Can See Everything has already shot to the top of multiple Oscar-contender lists, and not in the Best Documentary category (though that’s a possibility too). Could it upend The Odyssey‘s chances? Maybe! A documentary has never even been nominated for Best Picture, which gives you an idea of how transformative this movie is. And it feels particularly relevant in today’s post-truth era, with Holmes insisting she did nothing wrong and Fielder’s astonishment channeling the audience’s disbelief.
Of course, Oscar voters are not exactly known for embracing the avant-garde. But like 2020’s Parasite, the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture with its scathing critique of wealth inequality, and last year’s Sinners, a horror flick that nabbed four wins and 16 nominations, You Can See Everything could be another film that drags the Oscars into the modern era.
Read more on The Los Angeles Times
It raises unsettling questions about reality vs. perception
There is a shocking and rather sad moment in You Can See Everything that gets to the very heart of what Fielder is seeking to answer with this film: Is Holmes lying about her role in the Theranos scandal, or does she really believe that she did nothing wrong? Put another way, are we watching a performance?
After pressing Holmes on her insistence that her blood-testing technology works as advertised, which clearly is not true (hence, her pending imprisonment), Fielder shows her Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” comedy bit, which plays with the idea of communication and misunderstanding. She doesn’t get the nearly century-old joke, just like she doesn’t seem to “get” that her tech really can’t do what she says it can.
Or does she? How can two people who are living in the same reality see things so differently? In an era defined by second-guessing what’s real, from social media to politics to technology, “[Fielder’s] film is a self-reflexive study of the inability to act as people expect—of masking and deception,” says Coleman Spilde at Salon. “How much of life is a performance?”
Read more on Salon
It’s bringing people back to theaters
In an era of streaming ubiquity, it’s been hard for studios to capture the attention of audiences who would just as soon stay at home—especially for a three-hour documentary. But in its opening weekend, You Can See Everything sold out more than 2,000 shows and raked in $15 million at just 855 theaters. After expanding to 2,600 theaters in its second weekend, it added another $19.5 million to its tally.
Moviegoers are saying it’s one of those shared cultural moments you have to see in a crowd. Just take a quick look at your socials to see videos of packed lobbies and excited viewers who can’t wait to talk about what the heck they just saw.
Read more on Mashable and The Guardian
It’s sparking a debate over villain and victim narratives
If you followed the Theranos scandal in real time, you likely have an unsympathetic opinion of Holmes. But here, both her partner, Evans, and Theranos co-founder Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who was also convicted of fraud, come off as controlling and dominating. Late in the film, a reveal about Evans’s role in the negotiations, as well as his activities while she’s in prison, raise questions about who is the real villain here.
But whistleblowers like Tyler Shultz, a Theranos employee who exposed her fraud, caution against buying into the victim narrative. The entire thing is messy, which is resonating with audiences who understand that life operates in the gray, not the black and white. Is it possible to have empathy for Holmes and, at the same time, see her as a manipulator? The movie seems to say yes.
The stare-downs are completely transfixing
One of Fielder’s trademarks is his ability to hold a gaze for an excruciatingly long time. Pair that with Holmes and her tendency to do the same, combined with her wide-open eyes and constant nodding, and it’s immensely uncomfortable. Clips and memes of these stare-downs are all over the internet right now.
Clinical psychologist and body-language expert Morgan Starr-Riestis has seen the film twice and says it’s unsettling. “When our eyelids are pulled back like that and we’re unblinking, that’s usually a sign of fear or overwhelm,” she told Today. “When you pair it with a smile, the mismatch is naturally unsettling. Our nervous systems just register it as something off.”
A psychotherapist on Instagram, Elliot Connie, takes aim at Holmes’s selective nodding and head tilts, which he says are attempts to persuade and control the listener—usually Fielder, and by extension, the audience. Connie says these quirks are employed to make her seem docile and helpless but come off as deliberate and manipulative.
Read more on Today and Instagram
There’s a shocking twist that upends the documentary structure
If you don’t want a spoiler about a major development in the second half of the film, skip to the next section! Everyone else, here we go:
Fielder spends much of the movie documenting Holmes in the run-up to her reporting to prison. But things really get intense once she’s inside—and, of course, film crews aren’t allowed in Texas prison camps. So Fielder employs a ringer: Amanda Seyfried, who famously portrayed Holmes in The Dropout, the 2022 Hulu limited series based on the ABC News podcast of the same name.
Seyfried doesn’t just read Holmes’s side of her conversations with Fielder—she also becomes part of the story, helping him piece together what’s going on with Evans on the outside. She’s so good at this strange double role that she’s being talked about as a potential Oscar nominee for Best Actress.
Read more on The Daily Beast
Do a deep dive
But wait—there’s more! We’ve rounded up additional links to explore if you want to go down the You Can See Everything rabbit hole.
- Read: Bad Blood by John Carreyrou
- Discuss: r/movies subreddit: Official discussion—You Can See Everything [spoilers]
- Listen: You Can See Everything and the Nathan Fielder Effect on The New Yorker
- Watch a discussion with the directors: Film at Lincoln Center
- Watch the Hulu series: The Dropout
The post Everyone’s Talking About <i>You Can See Everything</i>—Here’s Why the Twisty Elizabeth Holmes Documentary Is <i>the</i> Movie to Watch This Year appeared first on Reader's Digest.
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