Review: 'You Can See Everything' brilliantly upends what we think about Elizabeth Holmes, true-crime narratives and even documentaries themselves
No matter how much you know, or think you know, about Elizabeth Holmes — now serving time in a Texas minimum-security prison for fraud in connection with her Theranos blood-testing device — the perception-bending documentary “You Will See Everything” will upend your ideas about her, the true-crime genre and the very nature of documentary storytelling.
The quick way to describe it is that the title is true, but also inadequate to what directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim deliver.
Fielder, known for his comedy work on “Nathan For You” and his investigatory docu-series “The Rehearsal,” was invited, we’re told initially, to bring a movie crew to capture Holmes’ life in 2023, in the month before she must report to the Bryan Federal Prison Camp in Texas, where she’s now serving more than 11 years for defrauding investors (though not defrauding patients, which Holmes says is an important distinction).
Fielder takes an on-camera role in the documentary, interviewing Holmes and her partner, tech entrepreneur and hotel heir Billy Evans, in a rental house on the Pacific coast near San Diego. They are there with their son, William, not yet two years old during filming, and their two-month-old baby daughter — named Invicta, according to People magazine, but referred to here as Ivy. At some point, Fielder takes up Holmes’ and Evans’ offer to sleep in the guest house, which allows near-total access. Or at least the appearance of it.
During the weeks in the rental, Fielder talks to Holmes and Evans about Theranos, and their stated hopes of trying to rebuild the company and prove that their one-drop blood-testing technology can actually work. Are they serious? Or is Holmes continuing the con that put her in prison? Fielder doesn’t know, and every time he tries to probe a bit deeper, something interrupts the conversation — usually it’s Evans telling the crew that Holmes has to be somewhere, or help get the kids to bed.
What Fielder does get out of Holmes complicates the narrative that’s been built up around her by news reports, true-crime podcasts and Amanda Seyfried’s Emmy-winning portrayal of her in the 2022 Hulu miniseries “The Dropout.” By the time Holmes goes to prison, about halfway through this nearly three-hour movie, Fielder has more questions than answers.
The second half of the film shows Fielder and Oppenheim, the unseen but equally important collaborator, as they try to find those answers.
There is no force on earth that would make me spoil what happens next. I will say this much: What Fielder and Oppenheimer do is brilliant, creating some of the purest cinema I’ve ever seen.
The questions raised in “You Can See Everything” go beyond Elizabeth Holmes and a particular criminal case. Fielder and Oppenheim get us thinking about our fascination with narratives, and how we process the story when facts don’t readily fit those narratives. It’s a movie that could, if you allow it, change the way you see everything.
——
‘You Can See Everything’
★★★★
Opens Friday, October 16, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for language and some graphic nudity. Running time: 174 minutes.