Nathan Fielder, the comedian behind “Nathan for You” and “The Rehearsal,” spent weeks with Elizabeth Holmes before she reported to prison. The result, “You Can See Everything,” opened in U.S. theaters Friday, and critics are calling it one of the best films of the year. It has a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score in the high 90s, Gold Derby reported.
The A24 documentary, co-directed with Lance Oppenheim, runs 174 minutes and is rated R. It follows the Theranos founder and her partner, Billy Evans, in 2023, as Holmes prepared to begin an 11-year federal prison sentence for defrauding investors.
What is ‘You Can See Everything’ about?
On the surface, it’s two professionals of the con sizing each other up. Fielder builds elaborate fake realities for his shows; Holmes built a fake blood-testing revolution worth billions. “You’re being real right now?” Fielder asks her at one point. “I’m always being real,” she answers, smiling, the Los Angeles Times’ Amy Nicholson wrote, calling the film “the King Kong vs. Godzilla of con artists.”
Critics say the second half takes turns that are best left unspoiled. Without giving much away: Evans, who invited the cameras in, becomes a major character, and actress Amanda Seyfried, who played Holmes in “The Dropout,” reads transcripts of Holmes’ words on camera. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman wrote that Evans comes off as “repugnant in his cockiness” but that the film “never mounts an apologia for Elizabeth Holmes,” Variety reported.
What are critics saying about the Elizabeth Holmes documentary?
It’s close to unanimous praise. The Guardian’s Adrian Horton called it “a stupefying and gloriously destabilizing hall of psychological mirrors,” The Guardian reported, after its New York Film Festival premiere, which she described as the fall’s hottest ticket. Vulture’s Alison Willmore wrote, “Nathan Fielder has made the movie of the year.” It first played as an unannounced “mystery” screening at the Telluride Film Festival.
Where was Elizabeth Holmes when the film was made?
About to go to prison. Holmes was convicted in 2022 of defrauding Theranos investors with claims that the company’s machines could run hundreds of tests from a few drops of blood. She reported to federal prison in Texas in 2023. The film was shot in and around the home she shared with Evans before she left.
The BeezLoop Take
There’s an obvious worry with a film like this: that giving a convicted fraudster three hours of screen time turns her into a sympathetic star. By the critics’ accounts, Fielder avoided that trap by making the movie about how hard it is to know when anyone is telling the truth, including the people making the documentary.
Holmes cost investors hundreds of millions and patients got bad test results. That’s worth keeping in mind amid the raves. A brilliant film about her isn’t the same as a redemption story, and the best reviews say this one doesn’t pretend to be.
The open question: after “The Dropout,” books, podcasts and now this, is there anything left the public doesn’t know about Elizabeth Holmes?
Also on BeezLoop: another new documentary, “Kill. Bury. Print.,” on a small-town paper and its sheriff.
Sources: Gold Derby · Variety · The Guardian · Los Angeles Times · A24 (trailer)
