In Manhattan, I went to the Quad Cinema to see You Can See Everything, a 2026 meta-documentary directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. The film focuses on Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of a now-defunct health technology company Theranos, who is currently serving an 11-year federal prison sentence for defrauding investors.
The film's first third focuses on her in a beachside rental cabin in San Diego with her partner, Billy Evans, and their two children, a baby and a toddler, as absurdist comedian Nathan Fielder and documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheim document the month before she is set to begin her prison sentence. Holmes and Evans had invited the entertainment company A24 to document their lives in this period, and they sent Fielder and Oppenheim to capture footage. Fielder, known for doing high-concept prank comedy in his shows The Rehearsal and Nathan For You, has a persona that mixes being awkward with deadpan humor, and is quiet but asks direct questions to Elizabeth and Billy, trying to understand them and break through Elizabeth's seemingly pleasant demeanor, with her big, unblinking eye stare and smile that looks like a smirk. Elizabeth denies that she lied about anything, that her device that she claimed could diagnose many diseases from a single drop of blood could work despite proof that it did not, and claims she isn't deceiving Nathan, who is polite but skeptical.
Billy, meanwhile, is protective of Elizabeth, doesn't trust the cameras or Nathan, and is more tense and shifty-eyed, often interrupting when Nathan's interviews with Elizabeth seemingly get too much like an interrogation or cracking through her facade. When Nathan asks him how he met Elizabeth, he said he met her at a party, figured out within an hour who she was because of her notoriety, and still pursued a relationship with her. Nathan asks Billy how he could be sure that she wasn't scamming him, and he goes "What would she get out of me?" Nathan goes, "Well, your family is rich." Billy: "Well, there are different levels of wealth . . ." and evades answering further before excusing himself from the conversation.
Elizabeth is a very literal person, and seemingly doesn't understand how the way her mind perceives things isn't the way others do. Nathan explains to her that when she told investors that her device "can" work, she meant it more in the realm of possibility, whereas her investors heard it as meaning that it was currently able to work. Nathan tries to explain this further to her by showing her the classic Abbott & Costello routine "Who's on First," where the joke is about a baseball player named Who, leading to much confusion. Elizabeth finds it amusing, but when Nathan asks her what was funny about it, and then asks her what the baseball player's name on first was, she doesn't know, and doesn't get the joke.
There's a moment where Elizabeth is whisking eggs in a bowl, and Billy looks annoyed and walks over and takes the bowl, and starts whisking them faster, in a moment of passive-aggressive control. Nathan asks him why he did that, and Elizabeth explains that he doesn't think she whisks them well enough, and it's this awkward and uncomfortable moment of Billy being this emotionally abusive and controlling partner, that the film sheds more light on later.
The film not only questions Elizabeth and Billy, but Nathan himself, as he can't understand Elizabeth, while seemingly getting too close to her. He lives in a guest room during the production, he goes out swimming in the ocean with Elizabeth, playing around, and there are several moments where it looks like there is romantic tension between Nathan and Elizabeth. He is questioned on this later in the film by another person, wondering if he is cutting out any footage or recording of his talks with Elizabeth that makes her look more guilty, because he may be protecting her, and he doesn't have an answer for this.
There is a 2022 Hulu miniseries based on Elizabeth's story, The Dropout, starring Amanda Seyfried as her, and Nathan shows it to Elizabeth and Billy, and Elizabeth can barely watch it, seeing it more as fiction than her real life, including a quote from the film where Seyfried as Elizabeth says she created a character to become, which Elizabeth denies ever saying to a New York Times journalist.
The film sets this like a drama, with horror movie music and slow camera push-in zooms on people, but it also has comedic breaks with the editing, like Nathan tapping on the hardness of his guest bed because it doesn't have a mattress on it, or him retorting back to Billy, "You don't know what's in my head."
After Elizabeth goes to prison, the film continues on for 90 minutes, with more about Billy, questioning his controlling relationship with Elizabeth, as well as more revelations, and the documentary filmmakers questioning their own unrecorded moments with Billy and Elizabeth, and trying to piece things together to understand the whole story. It gets more meta as it goes on, with fact and fiction bouncing back and forth, and it is really inviting and strange and interesting to watch.
This is a standout film, and came as a surprise announcement, premiering at the Telluride Film Festival before opening in limited release. I really liked it a lot, and found it fascinating.
No comments:
Post a Comment