Latest / Best of: Features / Forget the Oscars, give the Elizabeth Holmes doc 'You Can See Everything' a Pulitzer

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Forget the Oscars, give the Elizabeth Holmes doc 'You Can See Everything' a Pulitzer · Best of: Features

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  Forget the Oscars give the Elizabeth Holmes dock You Can See Everything
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  a Pulitzer. Written by Drew Mugeri This article is being read by
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  an automated voice generated by Everlett. Note, this review contains spoilers
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  for you can see everything. Sometimes the best journalists are people who
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  don't even purport to be journalists. The late Anthony Bourdain was one
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  such accidental herald, as was Barat star Sacha Baron Cohen before the
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  Gontonzo comedian became recognizably famous no matter his alter ego. Let's go
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  ahead and add writer performer Nathan Fielder to the list. You and
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  I know Fielder best from Nathan for You and the Rehearsal. Everyone
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  else is about to know him, for You Can seen.
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  Everything, a tag team effort with documentarian Lance Oppenheim that is not
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  only one of the best films of twenty twenty six, but also
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  one of the finest works of journalism I've ever seen. This movie
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  arrives in theaters with plenty of deserved Oscar buzz, but In this
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  case a mere film’s making award seems insufficient in recognition. As far
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  as I'm concerned, this thing deserves a Pulitzer. Categories be damned, and
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  maybe a Nobel Prize. But I'm getting ahead of myself. In case
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  you haven't seen the film's trailer, You Too Can See Everything is
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  a portrait of infamous Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who was convicted in
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  twenty twenty two of defrauding her company’s investors and is currently in
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  prison in Texas. You can read all about Holmes in John Carrieroo's
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  book Bad Blood An Essential TikTok of the Theranos scandals The book
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  not only tells the story of how Holmes led people to believe
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  that her company's revolutionary blood testing hardware worked it did not, but
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  also of how the Greater Silicon Valley culture inspired Holmes, and in
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  some cases perhaps abetted her. The Theranos scandal was one of the
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  highest profile financial scandals of this century, and Holmes was the haunting,
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  unblinking face of it. Holmes went dark for years after her malfeasance
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  was exposed, until she and her fiance, Billy Evans, agreed to let
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  Fielder and Oppenheim into their slipshod rental cottage in Del Mar for
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  weeks on end and film the couple, and their two very cute
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  children, as they prepared for Holmes to report to prison. Fielder and
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  Oppenheim were allowed to film the Holmes family nearly twenty four seven,
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  with Fielder at one point agreeing to stay with Found the Family
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  for an extended period of time. Hence the film's title. You will
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  indeed see everything. Almost too much of everything, given that this dock
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  runs nearly three hours, and given that the camera stays uncomfortably tight
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  on its participants, fielder included, for the bulk of that time. You'll
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  also see Billy Evans, penis, so be warned or titillated as you
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  see fit. As Fielder ingratiates himself with Holmes and Evans, he gets
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  them comfortable enough to ask the hard questions, about Theranos, about prison,
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  and even about themselves. The resulting footage is often shocking. You will
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  see Elizabeth Holmes Who still maintains she did nothing wrong, answer no
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  when Fielder asks her if she's ever lied in her life. You
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  will her, Billy Evans, the real villain in this particular story, tell
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  everyone in the room that he carries a gun on him, twenty
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  four seven. You will see Fielder screen the legendary Who's on First?
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  Sketch for Holmes and her partner, with Holmes missing They central joke
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  of the sketch entirely. You will see Fielder explain to Holmes that
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  Who is the name of they guy on first base, with her
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  still not really grasping it. And you'll see Holmes's partner tell her
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  you see the world differently, in a skin crawling attempt to turn
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  her seeming cluelessness into something laudatory. The Silicon Valley Mindset at Work.
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  Speaking of the Valley mindset, you will also see Holmes and Evans
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  spend a great deal of time in this movie attempting to boot
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  up Theranos 2.0. The even go so far as to drag out
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  some of the original Theranos blood testing apparatus, which looks like a
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  bunch of random parts from TigerDirect they hooked together, to show Fielder
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  what their product can do. We do not see it. Doing anything
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  on screen, but the couple assures what it we would if it
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  was like hooked up properly. These scenes are extremely funny, but funny
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  isn't what Fielder is looking for. He's trying to figure out if
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  this woman is a clueless nafe, if she believes her own lies,
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  or if she is playing the character of an innocent woman, and
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  doing so with such effectiveness that, to paraphrase Fielder she might be
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  the most manipulative person in the world. The answer proves fabulously elusive,
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  and so Fielder and Oppenheim go to extremes in their attempt to
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  find it. They hold the camera on Holmes's rubbery elfin face for
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  what feels like hours at a time, to see if she'll blink,
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  figuratively or literally. They interview Holmes visiting parents, with the father, former
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  Enron exec Christian Holmes casually telling Fielder that everything changed for his
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  daughter when she was raped. To the furthest extreme, the bring in
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  actress Amanda Seifried, who played Holmes in the Hulu TV show the
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  Dropout to recreate any dialogues Fielder had with Holmes herself that couldn't
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  be recorded on camera. Seifried is so convincing in mimicking Holmes that
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  you, the audience, might forget which scenes were Seifried talking to the
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  camera and not Holmes herself. I know I did. It gets crazier.
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  After Holmes reports to prison, Seyfried joins Fielder on a trip to
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  visit Billy Evans in a clandestine attempt to get Holmes partner to
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  admit that, without Holmes knowledge, he demanded, and for a moment, received
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  promise of, monetary compensation from the A twenty four studio for the
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  couple's participation in this documentary. A brief pause here. Billy Evans is
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  scion to the San Diego based Evans Hotel's family fortune. Evans met
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  Holmes well after she become notorious, but tells Fielder early in You
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  Can See Everything that he didn't recognize her when the two first
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  met. In fact, he fell in love with Holmes within an hour
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  of meeting her, then found out who she was, then still wanted
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  to be with her anyway. Do you buy this story? Of course
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  you don't. This man is incredibly full of S T, and that
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  becomes even more apparent when he's confronted by both Fielder and Sayfried
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  after Holmes has reported to prison. That's when we hear Evans sneer,
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  I'm better red than you, at Sayfried, who, as a reminder, is
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  one of the most skilled people in the world at her chosen
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  profession. He, also taunts Seifried for getting owned on Twitter after she
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  derided the late white supremacist Charlie Kirk, whom of course Evans actually
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  admired. This. Man is an absolute piece of ST. Thankfully, Seifried says
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  as much, becoming audience surrogate after that alarming sequence, and telling Fielder
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  that Holmes's partner is bats tea crazy. Amanda Seifried might be the
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  coolest person in Hollywood. As for Fielder, he's left wondering if Holmes
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  has been victimized by her own partner, by her former Theranos Paramour
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  Sonny Balwani, also now in prison, and whom Holmes also accused of
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  raping her and by God knows who else. Was this woman, once
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  a billionaire, more pawn than mastermind? Fielder shows some platonic fondness for
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  Holmes over the course of this
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  film but by this point in the story it's hard to know
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  if he, the interviewer, is also playing a character in order to
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  get that he wants. Fielder, to his credit, acknowledges the thorniness of
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  all this. He's openly uncertain of having Safe Reed dramatize Holmes words
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  on camera, because, no matter how talented the actress is, It’s still
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  not Holmes herself saying those words to the camera. He also doesn't
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  know if he's surreptitiously fallen for Holmes graciousness, to the point where
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  he questions himself to Seifried for believing Holmes when she told him,
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  almost on a lark, that she had no clue Evans was making
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  money moves behind her back. That leads to Seifried herself wondering if
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  her own Hulu portrayal of Holmes was truth, blurred truth, or just
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  fiction. By the end of the film, Seifried isn't sure what the
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  word fiction should even mean. That's what makes this film a masterwork.
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  You can see everything refers plainly to the extensive footage that Fielder
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  and Oppenheim were able to obtain, but here's a documentary that also
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  shows you, the audience, its whole methodology. It allows you to see
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  the potential flaws in its reporting, and how those flaws might impede
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  the filmmaker's attempt to find real answers. It's that truly radical transparency
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  that differentiates this documentary not only from the tacit spun docs that
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  now plague your television. Billy Evans cites Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's
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  deal with Netflix as a reason that he should be paid by
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  A twenty four for appearing on camera, but also from a lot
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  of the best pure documentaries ever filmed. Here is a movie that
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  exists on a level with Banksy's exit through the gift shop as
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  a superlative example of how the truth can be not just impossible
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  to find, but with great determination, can be eradicated altogether. I'll never
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  forget it.