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The doco turning Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes into a horror baddie · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian, this is the weekend edition of The Front.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Claire Harvey. It's not every day a documentary trailer
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  Speaker 1: breaks the internet. But earlier this week, after a debut
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  Speaker 1: screening at a film festival in Colorado, production house A24
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  Speaker 1: released a one-minute, 17-second teaser for its upcoming documentary, You
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  Speaker 1: Can See Everything. It got everyone talking. I've already watched
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  Speaker 1: it like four or five times.
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  Speaker 2: It is captivating.
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  Speaker 1: It's just really scary.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know why.
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  Speaker 1: You Can See Everything is a fly-on-the-wall ride-along with convicted
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  Speaker 1: Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes on her way to prison.
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  Speaker 2: Literally.
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  Speaker 1: A film crew headed by Canadian comedian Nathan Fielder spent
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  Speaker 1: the 34 days leading up to Holmes' incarceration with her,
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  Speaker 1: including on the day she entered federal prison camp Bryan
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  Speaker 1: in Texas. A24 is known for horror, Nathan Fielder for comedy.
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  Speaker 1: So how did this happen? And how has what looks
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  Speaker 1: like the documentary of the year been kept a secret?
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  Speaker 1: Joining me to unpack it all is Bianca Farmarcus, the
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  Speaker 1: Australian's Content Director of Culture. Dressed in a Steve Jobs-style
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  Speaker 1: black turtleneck, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes made the cover of
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  Speaker 1: Fortune magazine in 2013. A year later, she had an
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  Speaker 1: estimated value of $ 4. 5 billion. Ten years later, she was
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  Speaker 1: in prison. A California judge Friday sentenced Theranos founder Elizabeth
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  Speaker 1: Holmes to more than 11 years in prison for defrauding
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  Speaker 1: investors in her now-defunct blood-testing startup. Elizabeth Holmes was 19
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  Speaker 1: when she founded Theranos in 2003, a company which promised
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  Speaker 1: to revolutionise blood testing. During her interview for the Fortune feature,
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  Speaker 1: Holmes predicted her technology would eventually be able to run
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  Speaker 1: up to 1,000 tests with a single drop of blood.
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  Speaker 3: We see a world in which no one ever has
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  Speaker 3: to say, if only I'd known sooner.
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  Speaker 1: But there were serious issues at Theranos and in 2015,
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  Speaker 1: after a months-long secret investigation by John Carreyrou, published by
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  Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal, Theranos was exposed for altering blood tests,
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  Speaker 1: relying on third-party blood testing machines and delivering dangerously flawed
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  Speaker 1: results to patients. Bianca, I'm going to start by doing
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  Speaker 1: something we don't often do on the front. I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to play you this whole trailer and then I want
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  Speaker 1: us to talk about it. Because you know a lot
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  Speaker 1: more about film than I do.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not that person. I can promise you that. I
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  Speaker 3: don't have anything to deceive you on. Of course I'm
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  Speaker 3: not deceiving you. I'm engaging with you as a human being.
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  Speaker 3: Why would I deceive you?
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  Speaker 2: There's no.
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  Speaker 2: There's no reason for me to do that.
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  Speaker 3: Okay. Okay.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, good chat. You're being real right now? Always being real.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, that is, that's a horror trailer.
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  Speaker 4: Absolutely love that you don't see her face first.
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  Speaker 5: You hear a voice.
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  Speaker 4: Because everyone knows Elizabeth Holmes by the, like, the voice.
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  Speaker 1: So we see Nathan Field, a filmmaker, with headphones around
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  Speaker 1: his neck. So we immediately get the sense that he's
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  Speaker 1: working in a film setting. And we see Elizabeth Holmes,
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  Speaker 1: a very famous face, but now with no makeup and
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  Speaker 1: without the black turtleneck. And their faces are very close together.
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  Speaker 1: And at first I wondered if that was a trick
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  Speaker 1: of perspective, you know, if actually they're quite far apart.
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  Speaker 1: But when we ultimately zoom out, you see that in
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  Speaker 1: fact their faces are close together.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: He's leaning over the back of a sofa. She's sitting
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  Speaker 1: on the sofa and turning back to look at him.
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  Speaker 1: And she's maintaining his gaze and smiling in quite an
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  Speaker 1: unusual way for someone who's actually being tested. He's testing her.
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  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 4: And literally on the brink of going to prison. Let's
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  Speaker 4: not forget that. But it's just so bizarre. And you
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  Speaker 4: know what? It is very, very much his style of interviewing.
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  Speaker 4: So Nathan Fielder, I actually didn't become much of a
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  Speaker 4: fan of until the second season of the rehearsal. And
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  Speaker 4: I think a lot of people kind of got on
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  Speaker 4: board with him for that. He's very much known as
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  Speaker 4: a comedian that's always broken the fourth wall. So talking
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  Speaker 4: to audiences directly, but he also takes it a different
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  Speaker 4: level where he constructs realities for people then to participate in.
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  Speaker 4: So it's kind of like this idea of his work
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  Speaker 4: is both stranger than fiction, but also stranger than reality
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  Speaker 4: at the same time.
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  Speaker 2: This conversation's going pretty well. Yes. So that's no accident, right?
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  Speaker 5: Tell me about that in the rehearsal.
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  Speaker 1: What is the rehearsal?
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  Speaker 4: The rehearsal was basically a series of different episodes that
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  Speaker 4: looked at people's different problems and ways in which they
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  Speaker 4: could kind of come to solve them. So it was
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  Speaker 4: always very awkward people or often very awkward people kind
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  Speaker 4: of coming to terms on how to tell their friends
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  Speaker 4: things like, I'm lying about having, you know, a university
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  Speaker 4: degree or very simple problems. But the way in which
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  Speaker 4: he got these people to rehearse these problems to eventually
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  Speaker 4: come to the final reality.
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  Speaker 5: Moment were nuts. There were so many different things. So
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  Speaker 5: these are non-actors? These are non-actors. These are real people.
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  Speaker 4: And it's also a lot of the criticism that he
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  Speaker 4: faces is that he does typically tend to work only
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  Speaker 4: with real people. Everyday people, non-actors, people that aren't meant
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  Speaker 4: to be there, you know, professionally.
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  Speaker 2: With this show, if your performance isn't accurate, you could
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  Speaker 2: ruin someone's life.
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  Speaker 1: So now we see Nathan Fielder inserting himself right into
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  Speaker 1: this documentary, which we know is going to be about
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  Speaker 1: this woman, Elizabeth Holmes. For many documentary filmmakers, getting access
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  Speaker 1: like that would be enough. You know, the documentary would
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  Speaker 1: be about Elizabeth Holmes preparing to go to prison with
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  Speaker 1: obviously young children in the house. And the first thing
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  Speaker 1: he wants us to know is that Elizabeth Holmes is unreliable,
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  Speaker 1: that he's challenging her to tell him the truth and
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  Speaker 1: that she's not necessarily going to do that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Hear his mouth click in a way that sent, it's
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  Speaker 1: like nails down a chalkboard for me in audio. We
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  Speaker 1: try to get those noises out. But that's a choice,
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  Speaker 1: isn't it? Everything about this is a big choice, including
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  Speaker 1: that very real sound.
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  Speaker 4: What fascinates me about him is that part of his
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  Speaker 4: style is to really physically reconstruct things. So, you know,
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  Speaker 4: in a lot of crime documentaries, we see like the
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  Speaker 4: reconstruction and you get the actors in and they do
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  Speaker 4: like the mass murder scene or whatever it is. With him,
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  Speaker 4: it's like, no, we will rebuild a model of whatever
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  Speaker 4: Theranos was using. They bring out the blood testing machines
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  Speaker 4: from the bins to prove whether they work or not. Like,
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  Speaker 4: of course people want to see that, even though they
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  Speaker 4: know the story half to death at this point.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, it's been comprehensively established that Peranos did not have
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  Speaker 1: the capacity to do the blood testing work that they
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  Speaker 1: were promised. That's why Elizabeth Holmes is going to jail.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.
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  Speaker 4: And I've also read that Amanda Seyfried will be in this,
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  Speaker 4: who famously played Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout, to watch...
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  Speaker 4: in an ultra meta sequence, Elizabeth watching her in the
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  Speaker 4: role she portrayed her as.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 5: And that's part of this whole multiple.
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  Speaker 4: Layers of reality that Nathan Fielder likes to bring to
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  Speaker 4: the screen.
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  Speaker 2: What are we going to show at the demo? I
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  Speaker 2: don't understand. We're going to tell them that we don't
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  Speaker 2: have a working prototype.
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  Speaker 5: But it worked before.
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  Speaker 3: Everybody saw it.
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  Speaker 5: The choice of music.
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  Speaker 1: Even if the trailer itself, what we're seeing on screen,
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  Speaker 1: was not chilling and was not telling us that this
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  Speaker 1: woman is a villain, the choice of music makes that
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  Speaker 1: almost too clear.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: What did you think about that?
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  Speaker 4: It kind of fictionalises it in a bit, and it
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  Speaker 4: adds this mythology that, you know, I understand artistically is
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  Speaker 4: very interesting, but kind of from a documentary sense I
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  Speaker 4: think is mildly irresponsible.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: It signals to me that this is kind of an
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  Speaker 4: evolution of where documentary is going. Like, when is the
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  Speaker 4: last time people really cared about documentaries?
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  Speaker 5: They don't. It's not necessarily a buzz field.
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  Speaker 4: Every now and then it's a very interesting watch, but
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  Speaker 4: it's not something that the world stops over. This makes
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  Speaker 4: it cinematic and it makes it a spectacle and it
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  Speaker 4: makes it quite salacious and engaging, whether rightly or wrongly.
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  Speaker 1: As a publicity strategy, it's very different from the last
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  Speaker 1: A24 film that I was very conscious of, which was
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  Speaker 1: Marty Supreme.
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  Speaker 4: Marty Supreme is an American film that comes out on
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  Speaker 4: Christmas Day 2025.
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  Speaker 1: So that featured Timothee Chalamet dressed in sort of orange
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  Speaker 1: outfits 24-7 with his girlfriend, you know, climbing on top
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  Speaker 1: of Los Angeles landmarks, doing interviews in diners, you know,
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  Speaker 1: kind of begging people to come and see this film
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  Speaker 1: as the most important cultural work of the generation.
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  Speaker 2: We live in a bleak time. so this film is
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  Speaker 2: an attempt at an antidote to that.
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  Speaker 3: That's the spirit of Marty Supreme, Christmas Day, Marty Supreme,
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  Speaker 3: Dream Big, Marty Supreme, Christmas Day.
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  Speaker 1: This is very different, isn't it?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: That was relentless. I remember that.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, but this is just like a dull thud
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  Speaker 4: in the ground and now it's exploded. I would argue
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  Speaker 4: people are talking about this way more than they were
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  Speaker 4: talking about Marty Supreme.
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  Speaker 5: Well, it failed.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, he didn't get an Oscar.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, he didn't get an Oscar.
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  Speaker 4: But, you know, it's kind of the hype came and
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  Speaker 4: went as it tends to. This is just like a blast.
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  Speaker 4: sucker punch to the face. And now it's just like,
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  Speaker 4: we're going to drop this on you. What is one
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  Speaker 4: minute of footage to discuss that is now circulated around
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  Speaker 4: the world and generated so many conversations? One of the
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  Speaker 4: things that caught my eye in the trailer is that
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  Speaker 4: Nathan Field is working with Lance Oppenheim, who is also
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  Speaker 4: the director behind Primetime.
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  Speaker 2: Are you sure your parents aren't home?
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  Speaker 4: I'm sure.
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  Speaker 5: Big night planned.
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  Speaker 2: Who are you?
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  Speaker 4: She has a seat right there. Another A24 film releasing
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  Speaker 4: very soon stars Robert Pattinson in what a lot of
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  Speaker 4: people are saying will be his Oscar picture, his best
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  Speaker 4: actor Oscar picture. which tells the story of Chris Hansen,
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  Speaker 4: famously the man who created To Catch a Predator, the
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  Speaker 4: pedophile hunting show that has been marred in decades of
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  Speaker 4: controversy since it aired. And it is a very, very
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  Speaker 4: gritty kind of, is this man a monster?
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  Speaker 5: Is he a hero?
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  Speaker 4: Where did we stand with this kind of look into
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  Speaker 4: this person? So they obviously know what they're doing when
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  Speaker 4: they get these kind of controversial, murky figures. And they
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  Speaker 4: know how to twist these narratives, but also keep you
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  Speaker 4: on an edge of suspense. So it's very, very fascinating
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  Speaker 4: to me that they are taking this into a documentary sphere.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up, more of my conversation with Bianca Farmarcus. There
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  Speaker 1: are lots of reviews now floating around from the critics
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  Speaker 1: who are at Telluride who've written about the film. And
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  Speaker 1: a theme that I've noticed is that the documentary is
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  Speaker 1: going to look pretty closely and perhaps in a not
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  Speaker 1: very flattering light at Elizabeth Holmes' partner, Billy Evans. He's
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  Speaker 1: an heir to a hotel fortune in the United States
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  Speaker 1: and is now looking after their two daughters. This film
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  Speaker 1: is not slated for release in the United States until
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  Speaker 1: October in Australia. Maybe it'll be in cinemas in October.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it'll be a lot.
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  Speaker 2: Longer than that.
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  Speaker 1: That's a long time for this suggestion about him to
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  Speaker 1: sit out there. These are big issues, aren't they? These
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  Speaker 1: are two people's reputations who've trusted filmmakers to come into
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  Speaker 1: their home.
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  Speaker 2: The mind boggles.
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  Speaker 3: I know.
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  Speaker 5: Not even to come into their home. Nathan Fielder reportedly
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  Speaker 5: lived with them.
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  Speaker 4: Can you imagine as a journalist, sorry, just quickly, living
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  Speaker 4: with one of your subjects for 36 days?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, that is deeply compromising.
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  Speaker 4: As a fan, as an audience member, I'm like, I
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  Speaker 4: can't wait. This is going to be so juicy. As
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  Speaker 4: a journalist and as a media professional, it is kind
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  Speaker 4: of a bit of a grey area that doesn't naturally
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  Speaker 4: sit well with me. But it is a fascinating conversation
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  Speaker 4: of what does access look like now? How much is
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  Speaker 4: too much? and whether we should be requesting this. And,
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  Speaker 4: you know, I think Nathan Field has said in a
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  Speaker 4: private screening after this, in a Q & A, he
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  Speaker 4: did say we couldn't understand every single day after we
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  Speaker 4: would shoot for hours how we got this.
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  Speaker 5: Why were we here? What did we just see?
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  Speaker 4: It was kind of mind-boggling to them that these people
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  Speaker 4: let them into their homes so much.
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  Speaker 1: Especially when they could have invited in any mainstream media organisation.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, you could have had the New York Times
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  Speaker 1: or the Wall Street Journal or CBS's 60 Minutes in
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  Speaker 1: their making a much more conventional type of piece of journalism.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely.
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  Speaker 4: And then it just comes back to the kind of
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  Speaker 4: character of Elizabeth Holmes. Like she was very much known
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  Speaker 4: and on the record of saying like, I created the
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  Speaker 4: entity that wore the black turtleneck and created Theranos. But
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  Speaker 4: she has and had the deep voice and I was
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  Speaker 4: like a caricature of myself and that's who I put
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  Speaker 4: out to the world.
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  Speaker 5: Is this an extension of that?
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  Speaker 4: Does she know exactly what she's doing by inviting him
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  Speaker 4: to her home and saying, you know what?
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  Speaker 5: Next 36 days, I'm all yours. Get the cameras rolling.
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  Speaker 5: It's crazy.
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  Speaker 2: It is.
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  Speaker 5: I can't wait to watch.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks, Bianca.
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  Speaker 2: Me too.
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  Speaker 5: Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Bianca Farmarcus is the Australian's Content Director of Culture. This
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  Speaker 1: episode of The Front was hosted by me, Claire Harvey,
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  Speaker 1: and co-produced with Jasper Leake. Thanks for joining us on
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  Speaker 1: The Front this week. Our team also includes Christian Amiet,
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  Speaker 1: Liat Samaglou, Tiffany Dimack and Joshua Burton.