Elizabeth Holmes Documentary ‘You Can See Everything’ Is a Knockout Oscar Contender

Change your plans, cancel a dinner, do whatever it takes, but please, please see Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s “You Can See Everything” — immediately. Because leaks and spoilers will soon be slipping out and you really need to sit through this fascinating 174-minute, brain-teasing psychodrama in a state of virgin purity. Catch it as soon as humanly possible.Because this puppy is so amazingly surprising as hell. A gripping head-trip mystery without a neat and final resolution, but at the same time an infinite hall of mirrors thing that will hook you hard and keep you open-mouthed with amazement, if not something close to disbelief.If I didn’t have to write this review I’d honestly be back in the theater for a second viewing. It’s a film that tries, gradually at first, and then more and more commandingly, to seep into the undeniably curious, seemingly divided personality of Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes, who’s been serving an 11-year sentence since 2023 for defrauding investors (she’s bunked at a low security women’s prison camp in Bryan, Texas) and particularly her relationship with wealthy entrepreneur, and control freak, Billy Evans. “You Can See Everything” is a two-part experience and it’s the second half that really delivers the goods. But I can’t divulge too much for fear of ruining it. Part One, filmed in early ’23 at Ms. Holmes and Mr. Evans’ rented San Diego home — a beach pad in Del Mar — is a fascinating, fully intimate, deep-down capturing of what happened between Ms. Holmes, Mr. Evans, and documentarian Mr. Fielder, who is more of a dominating character than his subject. They get to know each other more — talking, exploring, watching Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” and an episode or two of Hulu’s 2022 drama “The Dropout”, the eight-episode series in which Amanda Seyfried portrayed Ms. Holmes. But Part Two of the doc — the Ms. Seyfried section, filmed in 2025 — is mind-blowing. One thing’s for certain, and that’s that Fielder’s nearly three-hour film is not a “documentary”: It’s a serving of serious, grade-A cinema. In my book it deserves a Best Picture Oscar nomination because it really expands and builds upon everyone’s idea of what a fact-driven, real-life documentary can be. It goes into places you’ll never see coming. It’s Increasingly surprising, moody, haunting, and at times unnerving, even with two or three shocks.Were James Taylor hired to bang out promotional copy for this A24 release, he might have written, “Lord knows, when the Pacific breezes blow, this film will turn your head around.” If Messrs. Fielder and Oppenheim’s film had been just a close-up study of Ms. Holmes, it would have felt exceptional but familiar — perhaps a defensive explanation of how she’s not really the deceitful “Dropout” sociopath of recent legend. For no one ever thought to be bad or villainous has ever regarded themselves as such.If this had been a feature film rather than an exercise in cinematic vérité, she might have said to Mr. Fielder: “Listen, Nathan, you’re a likable guy, and even though you disapprove of investor fraud, I know you’re fascinated by me. But there are some things I’ve done that you can’t understand. You’ve been around, and you know a lot of people, but you don’t understand my plight.”“You Can See Everything” has been assembled carefully and shrewdly — the Abbott & Costello scene aside, nothing is played for laughs although several chuckles were heard among viewers sitting near me — with a tone of solemn journalistic inquiry. Mr. Fielder adopts a dry, semi-casual tone from the beginning, asking pointed questions in a cautious, low-key way and thereby generating more interest.Without giving too much away, “You Can See Everything” more or less reveals the underlying truth of the whole Elizabeth Holmes-Theranos deception. Ms. Holmes is basically a soft-sell vibe lady — a seller of hopes and dreams and serenity down the road — and her male partners, initially Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani and then Billy Evans, serve as the proverbial bad cops who handle the dirty work. Ms. Holmes, in short, may have been playing some very tricky cards, all along playing dumb or oblivious, while a “step aside, I’ll handle this” alpha male does what’s necessary to enhance or inflate the Theranos brand.What to make of Ms. Holmes’s non-blinking eyes and that constant spaced-out smile and bobbing head? All I can say is that her vibe can feel simultaneously earnest and, at times, sociopathic. During a Q&A following the film’s debut at Telluride Film Festival a few weeks ago, Mr. Fielder allegedly said, according to Variety’s Chris Willman, that “he and others on the filmmaking team still had trouble figuring out exactly what they’d experienced in the process of making the movie — which is a fascinating conundrum, considering that, true to its title, Holmes and her husband did let them see just about everything it seemed possible to see.”I’d rather not say any more at this stage. It’s better to just see this film and try to suss it out for yourself. Trust me, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim have delivered a surge of pure movie-watching pleasure. “You Can See Everything” is nearly 180-minutes long, but I could have easily watched another hour’s worth.

Elizabeth Holmes Documentary ‘You Can See Everything’ Is a Knockout Oscar Contender

Elizabeth Holmes Documentary ‘You Can See Everything’ Is a Knockout Oscar Contender

More from the New York Sun

Duncan Sheik’s Gentlemanly, Raunchy Final Act

Todrick Hall’s ‘Midnight’ Chimes Unevenly

Paying Homage to the Fox and the Hedgehog of Cabaret

A Senseless Austen Adaptation

Microsoft Decries Trump-Vance Crackdown on High-Tech Visas

The Nidal Hasan Execution

Don’t Count the GOP Out Yet

Mamdani Puts a Smile on DSA Civil War as Rift Grows

More from the New York Sun

Duncan Sheik’s Gentlemanly, Raunchy Final Act

Todrick Hall’s ‘Midnight’ Chimes Unevenly

Paying Homage to the Fox and the Hedgehog of Cabaret

A Senseless Austen Adaptation

Microsoft Decries Trump-Vance Crackdown on High-Tech Visas

The Nidal Hasan Execution

Don’t Count the GOP Out Yet

Mamdani Puts a Smile on DSA Civil War as Rift Grows