Movie review by Greg Carlson
WARNING: The following review reveals key information. Read only if you have seen “You Can See Everything”
Thirty-four days before she reports to the minimum security federal detention facility in Bryan, Texas to serve time for wire fraud, we join Elizabeth Holmes as she opens her private life and personal space to the filmmakers Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. Their resulting movie, the transfixing meta-documentary “You Can See Everything,” premiered as a “secret screening” in September at the Telluride Film Festival. A24, riding the crest of the movie’s critical and public perception as must-see entertainment, is now celebrating healthy box office returns and the possibility that the film could become the first nonfiction feature to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.
In short, “You Can See Everything” lives up to its hype. And I would urge anyone interested in seeing it to know as little as possible going in. Holmes is best known as the disgraced founder of Theranos, a biotech start-up that promised to wholly disrupt the medical lab testing industry with a simple device that would perform a variety of diagnostics using just a few drops of blood. Many remember what happened next: Holmes and former Theranos president Sunny Balwani, following investigative work initially undertaken by Stanford professor John Ioannidis, came under the scrutiny of investors, the SEC and a variety of other watchdogs and stakeholders. As “The Wall Street Journal” reporter John Carreyrou wrote, “Theranos was a combination of fraud with hubris mixed with incompetence.”
That potent cocktail makes Holmes the perfect subject for Fielder and Oppenheim, whose intimate and embedded shooting style relied on three cameras and long zoom lenses to cover as much unguarded activity as possible. While Oppenheim retreats to the background, Fielder applies his well-honed on-camera expertise as a comedian and actor; “You Can See Everything” elicits a steady supply of gasps and laughs from viewers reacting to Fielder’s unflappable deadpan delivery as he goes to work on Holmes. Right next to Elizabeth is partner Billy Evans, whose increasingly toxic presence suggests a bizarre triangle the more Fielder wonders whether he can trust his initial assumption that Holmes is a master manipulator and liar.
Standing on the shoulders of titles including “F for Fake” and “The Act of Killing,” Fielder and Oppenheim alter the trajectory of “You Can See Everything” with the brilliant ploy that introduces Amanda Seyfried, who played Holmes in the 2022 Hulu miniseries “The Dropout.” Seyfried, in essence, appears as herself and as the constructed public persona known to fans as “Amanda Seyfried.” She also takes a second turn as Holmes, appearing in the quai-reenactments Fielder and Oppenheim stage after Holmes is imprisoned. The dizzying impact of Seyfried’s presence lifts the movie into rarefied territory. We try to come to grips with the idea that all of cinema and all of life that goes before the camera are constructions.
When Fielder shares a clip of Abbott and Costello’s legendary “Who’s on First?” routine with his principal subject, we are invited to believe that some particular kind of neurodivergence prevents Holmes from locking on to the double-meaning contained in the wordplay. Whether or not she “gets it” matters little next to her unwavering commitment to her bit. She cannot help but perform with complete confidence and pure and utter sincerity. To let the mask slip could mean harsher penalties and greater consequences. The movie’s nearly three-hour running time flows by while we continually contemplate its strange shape and the jagged contours of its ideas.