There haven’t been many falls from grace in recent years as significant as Elizabeth Holmes. Once the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, the founder of the medical company Theranos, which claimed to have revolutionized blood testing and was exposed for defrauding both patients and investors, was eventually convicted of numerous felonies and sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2022.
In the 34 days before her imprisonment, Holmes and her fiancé Billy Evans invited filmmakers Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder inside their homes to film a documentary about them, hoping to present themselves to the world in a new light.
Those familiar with Nathan Fielder’s work recognize that he is an odd choice for Holmes to reach out to. While technically a comedian, his recent work uses meta storytelling to deconstruct narratives, recently becoming a real-life Boeing 737 pilot for his show “The Rehearsal.” This is the exact reason why “You Can See Everything” is already compelling with just its premise, as Fielder now faces off against someone famously adept at constructing false narratives.
In the first hour of the film, Fielder takes a step back and assumes a journalistic stance, attempting to make sense of Holmes and Evans’ daily lives and their relationship. While Fielder is known for purposely introducing awkward bits to try to catch his subjects off guard, his few attempts at introducing humor with the infamous couple are quickly met with puzzling statements from a blank-staring Holmes and even stranger reactions from Evans.
The second half transforms the film from a documentary to a meta-contextual narrative, where Holmes has undergone her prison sentence, and her family moves to Austin to remain close to her. Oppenheim and Fielder reveal huge secrets about the film’s production, specifically regarding information Evans may be withholding from Holmes.
The story is no longer just about questioning Holmes and Evans, but about questioning the nature of the documentary as a whole, and whether the story Fielder is trying to uncover has just become another false narrative curated by the couple before filming even began. Fielder uses methods from “The Rehearsal” in an attempt to understand Holmes, staging reenactments of certain moments that weren’t filmed, while also simultaneously discussing with his collaborators whether these reenactments are fully accurate to what actually transpired.
The major crux of the film becomes the nature of Holmes and Evan’ relationship. The audience is continuously left guessing whether Holmes is manipulating Evans, whether Evans is in control of Holmes or — in the strangest scenario — whether they share true love that cannot be comprehended. In the final hour of “You Can See Everything,” Fielder’s relationship to the audience becomes the subject. In his attempts to uncover the truth, Fielder begins to create biases of his own that throw the entire narrative into question and the film becomes a complete reevaluation of how one should approach the media they create and consume.
5 Turkey Jerkies out of 5
