by Cris Mora-Villa, Contributing Writer
In the first chapter of John Carreyrou’s book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, Carreyrou relays a quote from an adolescent Elizabeth Holmes when asked by an unnamed relative what she wants to be when she grows up. Her response, “I want to be a billionaire.” Said relative notes that the inflection in Holmes’ words was hardly the kind of childish tenor that would warrant an endearing “would you look at that” kind of reaction from the adults in the room. Holmes spoke with determination, as if she knew that in just 20 years’ time Forbes would anoint her as the youngest female self-made billionaire in the world when Theranos, the now disgraced health technology company reached its peak market valuation at 9 billion dollars. Prior to the first of Carreyrou’s many articles on Theranos which were published in the Wall Street Journal, the story of Elizabeth Holmes was of a Stanford dropout turned entrepreneurial wunderkind who founded Theranos when she was 19 years old. As far as Silicon Valley-esque narratives go, Holmes’ ascension to becoming the lead pioneer in cutting edge pharmaceutical innovation was an undeniably compelling one. Conversely, such a spotlight only made her subsequent downfall an even greater spectacle to behold.
Following the company’s financial dissolution in 2018, media doing what media is prone to do, quickly capitalized on several fronts. In addition to Carreyrou’s book, the true crime podcast, The Dropout which covered the Theranos story (and later Holmes’ trial) was soon adapted into a miniseries of the same name. Alex Gibney, a documentarian with a long track record of examining narratives about fraudsters did his own piece on Theranos with The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley. Subject matter aside, what all of these projects share is their mythologizing perspective in how they discuss Holmes. Where Carreyrou’s novel acts as more of an investigative retelling of Theranos’ history sourced from multiple accounts, the remaining projects by nature of their respective mediums embrace the more outwardly sensationalist aspects of Holmes’ story. The unchecked Silicon Valley culture, hero worship, perception versus reality, etc. It is through this collection of streamlined content that the cultural narrative surrounding Holmes has been shaped to become what it is today. Or at the very least, what it was prior to the release of You Can See Everything.
In the short period of time since its wide release, You Can See Everything has quickly taken on a life of its own. Much of the onus behind the fervent reception to at least the film’s initial trailer was placed on the shared screen presence of Holmes and co-director Nathan Fielder. Few voices in all of contemporary entertainment have enveloped the kind of engrossing persona through their body of work in the way that Fielder has. His brand of psychological satire has always been reliant on communicating something to the audience by incorporating the camera beyond its industry standard capabilities. Bending the preordained rules of economy and human nature to morph a new situational reality for the benefit of comedic effect. The morality of Fielder’s practices has been the subject of much criticism; a critique I believe is worth interrogating.
There is an openly omnipotent quality to Fielder’s work that could easily be construed as manipulative in a way that is harmful towards the project’s subjects. John Wilson’s The History of Concrete was recently met with similar criticisms, an apt point of comparison given Fielder’s executive producer credit on How to with John Wilson. Regardless, the central critique I’ve read of each director’s ‘schtick’ is their shared use of the camera as means of either exploiting a person during a moment of open vulnerability or spotlighting their behavioral unawareness in the real time only to later recontextualize that footage in whatever manner deemed most well suited for mockery. What I feel some people miss when engaging with Wilson’s work is the latent humanist bend that embraces the avant-garde of New York and its inhabitants to allow for an emotional connection to foster between the viewer and Wilson’s own interest in the creation of art and impermanence. While The Curse as a piece of fiction is somewhat exempt from this, Fielder’s proclivity for including shame as part of the creative process in Nathan for You and The Rehearsal certainly makes him the more difficult of the two to defend, and so I won’t. If anything, You Can See Everything only adds to the argument.
Shot 34 days before Holmes was to begin her 11-year prison sentence with principal photography resuming two years later, the film follows Fielder and his production crew as he interrogates Holmes and her partner Billy Evans with unlimited access to their personal space. With Fielder in front of the camera and co-director Lance Oppenheim behind it, the film is aptly bisected into two halves, Oppenheim’s voyeuristic framing and expressionist camera taking control in the first half while Fielder’s recreational go-tos are saved for the second once Holmes is incarcerated. Upon a second watch of the film, this divide gave way to a shift in my own perspective, particularly with Fielder’s role as the man questioning both Holmes’ entrepreneurial intent and the intricacies of her relationship with Billy. I find that this shift (performative or otherwise) occurs with Fielder himself as an on-screen character in the film. Entwined with his knack for fabricating highly elaborate role playing scenarios, you can never know to what extent Fielder is choosing to show sincerity. It’s this facet of his creative process that makes his change in behavior worth questioning once the cameras return from hiatus, after he’s had distance to reflect on his time spent with Holmes.
A key moment of insight for what is (to some degree) guiding Fielder throughout his probing comes early in the film during a sit down with Holmes. He makes his insecurity known that because he doesn’t possess the scientific knowledge that would allow him to be specific when questioning the credibility of Theranos’ technology, he is therefore ill equipped when faced with Holmes’ assertion that there was no wrongdoing on her part. Though the film isn’t very interested in relitigating the science of it all anyway, the position that Fielder is occupying makes it so that he must turn elsewhere in his line of questioning to accelerate the narrative momentum of the project. I find this perfectly encapsulated when Fielder shows the Abbott & Costello, Who’s on First routine to Holmes and Billy. Holmes (framed with a baby bottle in hand might I add) is asked more than once whether she could interpret why the routine reads as humorous, in the process of being made to look a fool when she is unable to really do so. Billy then proceeds to make a moot point that Holmes’ inability to interpret social cues and perceive information in the same way as other people is simply what makes her different from the rest of the world. This pattern more or less continues throughout the rest of the film. Be it Fielder condescendingly asking if Holmes “invented” a small compartment door within her namesake invention the “Edison”, or when he prods her into watching The Dropout series to gauge her reaction in real time, he’s repeatedly aiming to capture something revealing about her or her mental headspace. Even when driven to the point of tears after seeing a fictionalized scene of her portrayed in the series by Amanda Seyfried and her previous partner Sunny Balwani (Naveen Andrews), it is Billy who must close the laptop, not Fielder. The cameras simply must keep rolling because as promised, we have to see everything.
In terms of sheer entertainment value, the dynamic between Holmes, Billy, and Fielder certainly makes good on the kind of cringe laden conversational back-and-forths promised in the film’s marketing. Look beyond that however, and what you’ll find are three explicit designations of character. Each complex in their own way, but which collectively results in a final product that is as depressing as it is entertaining. When looking at Billy’s role in the film, there are no shortage of examples to point to that are indicative of who this is as a person and how he factors into Holmes’ present day life. This comes through in small ways at the beginning, such as in his recurring habit of watching videos at two-times speed, or when he assumes control over Elizabeth’s lax egg beating, to instead do it himself. Slowly but surely however, Billy’s constant strive for personal productivity reveals itself to bear a significant role throughout the film as he is every bit as intentional as Fielder is in weaving together his own narrative.
There are a couple of instances in the film’s early moments where Billy will comment on the purpose of what he hopes this project will accomplish, implying that Fielder and Oppenheim will course correct Holmes’ existing narrative and cement something more in line with what he envisions to be the truth. Fielder (and in turn the viewer) is quick to clock Billy’s proactive stance that this documentary will further fuel an agenda that will benefit him and Holmes. Granted this is before we the audience learn of the morally questionable deal Billy struck with the executives at A24 in which he and Holmes would be paid a portion of the film’s profits for their participation, but these early moments in the film do help establish Billy’s behavior when living with Holmes. After Holmes is incarcerated, however, is when things take a turn.
One of the first scenes we see when filming resumes in 2025 is of Fielder conducting an interview with an engineer at Billy’s new startup company, Haemanthus. Spooked by Fielder’s line of questioning, Billy soon interjects and demands the cameras be shut off before continuing any further. In the moment, Billy’s controlling outburst reads as him overextending, as if he was attempting to overtake the role of director away from Fielder. As they reconvene to discuss this heated exchange, Fielder asks Billy if Holmes has a history of standing up for herself in relationships, to which Billy fails to conjure a response. This explicitly domineering attitude is explored further when looking at the decisions Billy makes on behalf of Holmes and explaining it away by saying what they each want is mutually exclusive. These decisions include but are not limited to.
- Not telling Holmes the details of the deal he made with A24.
- Profiting off of Holmes’ likeness when used by another party.
- Making key business decisions without consulting Holmes.
- Gaining access to and then posting from Holmes’ twitter account.
- Digitally scanning Holmes to make an AI simulated version of herself to speak with their children.
- Having power of attorney over Holmes
Collectively, all of these factual admissions made on Billy’s part, and which are then captured on camera tally up to paint a different narrative. Not one engineered by Billy, Fielder, or Oppenheim, but the succinct duality that despite her duplicitous actions which resulted in her criminal conviction, Holmes, as she is shown on camera is owed a degree of sympathy for having been robbed of her agency at every turn. In an interview with CBS, Theranos whistleblower Tyler Schultz, when asked whether Holmes’ depiction in the film resembles the person he worked under, recalls how the Holmes he knew possessed an innate confidence which allowed her to command authority over any room. Be it the hundreds of employees at Theranos or the litany of influential board members who only further propelled her rising stock. When speaking on the Holmes of today, Schultz ends his response with “The woman that I saw onscreen looked, frankly, like a broken woman.” I’m inclined to agree with him.
The image that I return to when thinking on this notion is not of Holmes, but her parents Christian and Noel Anne Holmes. Perhaps the only time in the film where Holmes actively appears to resemble her old, animated self is when she and Billy are workshopping on the technological science that would eventually form Haemanthus. As they are in the midst of their discussion, the camera cuts to Christian and Noel Anne almost in a state of defeated agony, resigned to look at their daughter working in the way that she once used to, but knowing she’ll be locked away for over a decade because of her missteps. It’s this general shade of regret which looms over Holmes from the first time we see her on camera. Her response to many of Fielder’s questions carry a vaguely calculated misremembering of what she normally would say as a CEO, but now is spoken in a hushed motherly tone, as if she doesn’t even have the capacity to deceive. Instead, she states what she wants most is to be with her children. Though he never accepts Holmes’ version of events regarding her time at Theranos, this very human instinct is something Fielder recognizes and has a touch of sympathy for, choosing the film’s final image to be of Holmes with her family from inside the penitentiary.
The longstanding perception of Elizabeth Holmes was of a huckster who was so capable, in the role she had fully embodied for herself, while at Theranos that she could probably talk anyone into anything. Holmes continuously denies that perception, at one point citing a quote attributed to her in a New York Times article written by Amy Chozick which she claims to be false. The quote, “They’re not playing me. They’re playing a character I created.” is in reference to Holmes’ reaction to The Dropout and how it portrayed her. It is at this point where I feel obliged to bring up Amanda Seyfried’s sudden inclusion in the back half of the film. In addition to making for a bizarre yet apropos choice given Fielder’s creative sensibilities, her willingness to return to portraying Holmes, only under vastly different circumstances than in The Dropout makes for a deliciously metatextual turn that serves multiple purposes.
For one, it adds yet another layer to the growing list of instances where Holmes can no longer speak for herself. Her image and likeness again embodied by someone giving a performance, this time penned by Fielder’s own subjective interpretations of her. Second, it provides Fielder with a tenuous throughline to further develop his relationship with Holmes despite not having had any contact since May of 2023. And third, Seyfried is detached enough from the crux of Fielder’s motivation to also become the audience surrogate, in turn adopting the objective lens Fielder no longer possesses. When writing to Holmes in prison, Fielder makes sure to bring up his recent divorce. Though this may seem like a superfluous detail, I can’t envision a scenario in which this wasn’t an intentional decision to gauge a reaction out of her, which it does. The audience is left with no other choice but to accept Fielder’s version of events when describing his reunion with Holmes. Seyfried relays the authenticity of the genuine human connection that was described by Fielder. And it’s here where this admission raises the ire of Seyfried, who as the only voice of reason asks if Fielder has let a desire to protect Elizabeth cloud his memory. Ending the film with Fielder’s own internal compass becoming compromised is an ironic turn of events given who we’re talking about here. A conclusion that simultaneously acts as the ultimate blurring of lines: the distinction between narrative feature and documentary collapsing in on itself and leaving one to wonder where the truth lies. With that being said, it’s worth remembering that the genesis for this whole project started with Elizabeth Holmes.
Rating: Loved It
You Can See Everything is currently available in theaters.
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