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The Riveting Enigmas of Perception and Truth in You Can See Everything

When asked if she has ever lied, at any point in her life, Elizabeth Holmes says with a straight face and apparent earnestness, “no”. It is a bewildering answer, catching its interviewer off guard, and it is vital. Holmes cannot bear being seen as a dishonest person and it is a little torture to her that that is what most people associate her with. She is so fixated on diminishing that perception to the point of making ludicrous statements such as this. Changing that perception is supposedly why she invited a documentary crew into her home. She’s not a liar, she’s not a grifter, and she can prove it. It’s all there in the open. You can see everything.
The film that came out of this is unusually layered for a documentary character study; but Elizabeth Holmes is a uniquely unusual subject. The disgraced former billionaire CEO of Theranos, convicted of defrauding investors on a massive scale, has maintained her innocence of any wrongdoing through the flimsiest of defenses that she is nonetheless wholehearted about. The scandal serves as merely the backdrop and context by which filmmakers Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim approach Holmes as a person, endeavouring to get a sense of who she really is, what she thinks and feels. To this mutual end, she offers transparency… yet the burning question of the truth in that transparency follows intensely through the experience of living with her and beyond.
That experience is the initial hook of You Can See Everything. In 2023, a month before the start of her eleven-year prison sentence, Holmes and her partner Billy Evans -himself rich and an entrepreneur- invite Fielder and Oppenheim to document their lives for a week. The goal on their end is clearly to set the record straight as Holmes sees it, showcase the everyday tenets of their life, and rehabilitate her character in the eyes of a public she deems has been harsh and unfair towards her. Fielder and Oppenheim however have other plans. As Fielder in front of the camera spends time with the couple -giving them grace yet still challenging them, interrogating them often with his characteristic brand of deadpan absurdism, what comes across is a portrait of both Holmes and Evans, their relationship and their individual powers that is shrouded in interchanging clouds of sincerity and doubt. It becomes even more pronounced and even more compelling when the movie sees her off to prison prematurely and thereafter follows an investigation two years later focused on information related to the making of the film itself and which casts everything before in a new light that ultimately forces both Fielder and the audience to question the subjectivity of their own perceptions.
It is this theme that is the lynchpin of a movie that shifts its focus and subject in a manner that not only challenges categorization but thrusts the complexity of its question on the audience. Like Fielder, our observation does not exist in a vacuum, all biases inform conclusions. We see a lot of Holmes through a sizeable portion of the movie and in a mix of mundane and more pointed contexts. Yet the premise behind all of it is inherently suspicious. From the start you are primed to wonder how much of a performance she and Evans are putting on -and Fielder is too. When she breaks down in one interview over the prospect of not seeing her kids once in prison, it feels very genuine -and yet in another moment she demonstrates an ability to cry on cue. Still, the circumstances are very unique, and so too is Holmes, who Evans is quick to often point out thinks differently from other people. Fielder comes to her occasionally with questions and exercises related to the Theranos affair. He shows her The Dropout -the Hulu series based on Holmes's life, and questions her over the argument she makes in her defence: that the claim their blood-testing device can make fast and accurate diagnoses always meant "can" in the future tense, despite very few people interpreting that statement in such a way, Fielder tries to explain the semantic confusion here, and even shows her the Abbott and Costello "Who's on First?" routine in an effort to get the notion across to her, but she still can't (or won't) comprehend. It appears so ludicrous you are tempted to reason she is being willfully incompetent and obtuse, resisting logic in order to maintain her position. All the while, Oppenheim shoots these interactions intimately, extreme close-ups on both Fielder and Holmes, probing the depths of her expression for some gleam of truth beneath those big expressive blue eyes; complimenting this as well with an eerie score by Ari Balouzian. Yet for as suspect as her character is, such a framing is no less so.
Perhaps, it is because of an awareness of this subjectivity that Fielder is subtly placed under the microscope as much as Holmes. Several shots of her with Evans or her children in the foreground hone in on him watching them in the background. His curiosity and incredulity is as much on display as anything Holmes and Evans say or do and quietly there is this other character study taking place. His lens of objectivity is moot from the start, he often interjects wry comments or frank lines of questioning into their interactions, though he is never overtly hostile towards Holmes -he even jokes with her on occasion. And all of this is from what we see -what of the time when the camera isn't rolling? The strangeness of the situation is aesthetically and tonally emphasized, Fielder does adequately play the straight man, but what is really there beneath the surface?
These questions are not obvious at first, but the second half of the movie shines a spotlight on them -following up on Holmes and Evans three years later while Holmes is incarcerated. In light of this, significant focus shifts to Evans, his relationship with Holmes, and both his actions since her imprisonment and with regards to the construction of the film itself. Details that drastically change how the earlier segments come across and throw into question certain motivations and statements, even the very impetus behind the doc itself.  The way that Fielder and Oppenheim go about interrogating these contradictions is fascinating, unconventional, and highly effective, finding inventive ways around logistical barriers that bring with them whole new questions of perception while adding a layer of performance in an effort to ascertain some truth that speaks to first the ethics of this project and more opaquely the character of these figures. Evans in particular comes off looking quite bad, especially with regards to how he manages Holmes's reputation post-imprisonment in tandem with his business ventures. The question of Holmes's consent in say, her image being used in A.I. or as a marketing tool, comes up frequently -Evans can offer no evidence of it and his assurances are sketchy at best, especially in light of some of the things she is on record telling Fielder. From early on, the film subtly notes the aspects of Holmes and Evans's relationship that mirror the purported nature of Holmes's relationship with Sunny Balwani -her former partner in both business and romance who also took the fall in the Theranos debacle- common denominators of control and exploitation rearing their head quite vividly. It doesn't help Evans that his personality is seen to be belligerent at times, that he infantilizes his wife and he is visibly uncomfortable when confronted with sharper questions around his relationship with Holmes and the ethics of their business arrangements.
But nothing in You Can See Everything is ultimately so simple, and for whatever directions the film leads its audience's sympathy in, it is open to challenging them and scrutinizing itself in the process. Fielder and Oppenheim don’t let themselves off the hook, even as they are largely presented in a more identifiable and seemingly neutral light. Fielder’s bluntness is an especially strong attribute and it is largely through it that the movie winds up being quite funny in places. His pressing questions and observations certainly yield the intended awkward results, and it can be cathartic to see Evans especially squirm under the spotlight. Fielder adapts several of the tactics of his various television shows to good effect, his disarming personality wielded extraordinarily well to make for these oddball beats, with results more revealing than most documentaries achieve.
And yet, how much can we trust what is being revealed? The layers of perception that we are shown create lenses that we can choose to take into account or not. All documentaries have it to a degree, but this film in openly acknowledging it invites more curious judgement. The last act especially, which in an offbeat way involves Holmes again, is viscerally compelling for its information and the complexity of context with which we are forced to take it. One thing is for certain, Holmes is a more fascinating figure than she initially appeared, which can’t honestly be said about Evans. There is a certain element of conspiratorial implication to it all, but the film makes the right choice in not upholding a single theory. It could be that Holmes and her strangeness in this film are just an honest image of human psychology, more honest perhaps than we would like to believe.
You can see everything, but what are you really seeing? It doesn’t just apply to this doc or documentaries in general. And bringing such themes to the fore in so fascinating, investigative, and thrillingly metatextual a way is what makes this such a remarkable film -perhaps even one of the great documentaries of the decade. It is just as much an essay film, but that doesn’t keep it from being enthralling, especially once that second part kicks into gear and introduces one particularly enjoyable element. It is a stupendously shot movie as well, with unusually rich and deep cinematography that captures intensely its mood and critical imagery -those eyes on Elizabeth Holmes especially. What is behind them? Is it possible to truly see everything?

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