‘You Can See Everything’ Review: The buzzy Elizabeth Holmes documentary is worth the hype

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‘You Can See Everything’ trailer

The trailer for the A24 documentary “You Can See Everything” featuring notorious Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.Directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim.

The best documentaries don’t feel like documentaries.They have a connotation of being educational, but even career documentarians will tell you that all they’re doing is telling a story just like any other film.

Well, A24’s “You Can See Everything” is not like any other film, nor is it like any other documentary.

Comedian Nathan Fielder shocked the internet during the festival circuit earlier this year when he unveiled a documentary he spent three years developing featuring Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced Theranos founder who granted him unfettered access in the 34 days leading up to her11-year prison sentencein 2023.

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Elizabeth Holmes in You Can See Everything

Elizabeth Holmes in the A24 documentary “You Can See Everything.”(Courtesy of A24)

You likely know the story already: Holmes becamea media darlingin the mid-2010s as her company had allegedly developed a medical device that can detect virtually all diseases from a single drop of blood.However, investigative reporting by The Wall Street Journal led to her downfall and she was ultimately found guilty of defrauding investors in 2022.

Having lived in obscurity since the collapse of Theranos, Holmes providing unprecedented access to Fielder and co-director Lance Oppenheim certainly turned heads.

Fielder serves as our on-camera shepherd, spending intimate moments with her, her husband Billy Evans and their two infant children.He isn’t shy about expressing his skepticism towards Holmes and Evans as she maintains her innocence while the two of them are in the early stages of scheming a major comeback for what can be dubbed “Theranos 2.0.”

Both Fielder and the audience alike stare into Holmes’ big blue eyes above her porcelain red cheeks, hoping to read between the lines of whether she’s being as authentic as she claims to be or if she’s the cunning manipulator the world believes she is.

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Elizabeth Holmes, Billy Evans, Nathan Fielder in You Can See Everything

Elizabeth Holmes, Billy Evans and Nathan Fielder in A24’s “You Can See Everything.”(Lance Oppenheim)

What’s remarkable about “You Can See Everything” is how it becomes increasingly indiscernible on who we can really trust as the documentary progresses.Her husband is a peculiar character in his own right, and we begin to suspect his motives.We even start to question the filmmakers behind the documentary at one point, thanks in part to Fielder and Oppenheim pulling back the curtain.A fun mystery thriller develops in the process.

While not notorious like Holmes, Fielder made a name for himself as the host of Comedy Central’s “Nathan For You” and HBO’s “The Rehearsal,” both of which are part comedies, part docuseries.For comedic effect, Fielder often blurs the lines of what documentaries are supposed to do.So the strange twist and turns “You Can See Everything” takes in the second act may not exactly shock those who are familiar with his work, but the direction it goes is spellbinding nonetheless.

Fielder is as awkward as he is hilarious, and the way he often uses bluntness to seek the truth is amusing.Despite the nearly three-hour runtime, it doesn’t drag thanks to editor Adam Locke-Norton.The cinematography by David Bolen and the score from composer Ari Balouzian (both of whom also worked on Oppenheim’s “Primetime“) add to the documentary’s high production value.

And the internet rumors aboutCharlie Kirkbeing invoked in this documentary are true.I’ll leave it to you as to how he comes up.

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