YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING Review

In April 2023, 34 days before disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is set to begin her 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors, she and her partner, Billy Evans, invite filmmakers Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim to document their lives, the end result giving us You Can See Everything. Despite being granted unprecedented access to the couple, Fielder becomes increasingly suspicious that they are withholding information, with Evans making particular efforts to control the narrative surrounding Holmes. It's never entirely clear how much of their lives the filmmakers are actually being allowed to see. What begins as a documentary about a disgraced entrepreneur preparing for prison quickly becomes something much stranger, raising questions about who's actually controlling the narrative and how much of what we're watching is real.

People often suggest having a base knowledge of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos before watching this film, but it is arguably more important to understand who Nathan Fielder is and his particular style of comedy and filmmaking. Nathan for You saw Fielder use elaborate schemes and unsuspecting participants to blur the lines between reality, fiction, and conventional television comedy. The Curse blended scathing social satire with surrealism, absurdism, and even supernatural elements. The Rehearsal, particularly its second season, is one of the greatest social experiments ever put to film. Well, at least until this film. Fielder has consistently pushed the boundaries of social experimentation through a comedic lens, but as his career has progressed, I've become increasingly hesitant to even categorize him as a comedian. You Can See Everything feels like the culmination of that evolution.

Throughout his career, Fielder has typically divided his attention between an assortment of participants, scenarios, and social experiments, often exploring several different ideas within a single episode of television. With You Can See Everything, however, he dives headfirst into a single individual more extensively than ever before. With Elizabeth Holmes, Fielder has arguably found his most fascinating subject yet.

**SPOILERS AHEAD — CONTINUE READING AT YOUR OWN RISK.**

One of the most fascinating aspects of the film is trying to figure out who Elizabeth Holmes really is. Is she one of the greatest manipulators of all time, or does she genuinely not understand how the things she says and does come across to other people? I didn't really get the impression that she was playing a character while watching the film, but it's incredibly difficult to tell. What I do think is clear is that, from the perspective of Holmes and Billy Evans, this documentary is an attempt to rehabilitate her image. By inviting filmmakers into their lives, they're seemingly hoping to show a side of Holmes that the public hasn't seen before. She's no longer just the disgraced Theranos founder, but also a partner, a mother, and someone preparing to serve an 11-year prison sentence. Still, given her history, it's hard to watch any of this without questioning how much of it we're actually supposed to believe.

I think Fielder is just as interested in figuring out Elizabeth and whether she's attempting to control the narrative. Billy's intentions are considerably easier to recognize. Fielder certainly pushes back against him from time to time, but for the most part, I think he allows the couple to believe they're getting the documentary they want. Historically, his presence has made the people he's filming uncomfortable, but Elizabeth seems surprisingly comfortable around him. At least, that's how it appears. It's difficult to know whether that's genuine or another layer of the performance, but she seems far more at ease with Fielder than Billy does. Billy's level of comfort, on the other hand, seems to fluctuate throughout the film.

The film is relatively easy to divide into two halves, with Elizabeth and Amanda Seyfried occupying the center of each, but I think that interpretation overlooks a lot of what makes the film so interesting. Fielder gradually turns the camera back on himself, becoming increasingly introspective as the film progresses, particularly toward the end. Before long, I found myself just as interested in what Fielder was doing as I was in the people he's filming. Even the interactions that initially seem to reveal something about Elizabeth or Billy often leave you questioning what was actually happening behind the scenes. The full-frontal nudity, for example, gives you one impression of Billy's willingness to participate, while his decision to shut Nathan down in the middle of an interview with someone else suggests something entirely different.

I've been saying for a while now that I don't really consider this an actual documentary so much as a social experiment shot like a drama. It's genuinely difficult to distinguish between what is spontaneous and what has been orchestrated, because nearly every scene feels like some combination of the two. There are certainly elements of a traditional documentary, but the film also borrows heavily from narrative filmmaking, often feeling like a strange cross between the two.

Amanda's presence in the second half is particularly fascinating. She's very defensive of Elizabeth's portrayal in The Dropout whenever Nathan brings it up, but she's also willing to challenge him directly. At one point, she suggests that his changing relationship with Elizabeth has caused him to lose his grip on the documentary's narrative. I actually found myself agreeing with her to an extent. Nathan initially seems to dismiss the criticism, but you can tell he's genuinely considering what she's saying. What's interesting is that Amanda doesn't come across as overly critical of him. She clearly respects his work and seems to like him personally, which makes her willingness to challenge him all the more fascinating. Her confrontation with Billy at their house is another particularly entertaining moment, although, like so many scenes in this film, it leaves you questioning just about everyone involved.

There are objectively funny moments throughout the film, and I found myself laughing more than I probably expected to. The Abbott and Costello scene was particularly entertaining, but there's something inherently uncomfortable about much of the humor. It's difficult to know when it's actually acceptable to laugh, particularly given the circumstances surrounding the people involved. Even when a moment is undeniably funny, there's often another layer to it that makes you question whether you should be laughing in the first place.

Ultimately, I came away respecting Nathan more because of his exchange with Amanda. He's spent so much of his career putting other people in uncomfortable situations and examining their behavior, but here he's forced to turn that same scrutiny on himself. His willingness to question his own objectivity is one of the more interesting aspects of the film. The more you watch, the harder it becomes to determine where the experiment ends and the filmmaking begins.

🍿 SCORE = 99 / 100