You Can See Everything Review: A Film That Delivers the Unexpected and Then Some

How does someone even begin to provide truth in our age? As A.I. continues to invade every facet of our lives, filling screens with deepfakes, how can we really determine what is objectively true? Convicted fraudster and Theranos founder Elizabeth “Liz” Holmes wants you to believe her innocence and purity, not the monstrous image portrayed in the media. But given everything the world knows about her, through her interviews and TV portrayals like the Emmy winning series, The Dropout, is believing her even possible? Holmes and her partner Billy Evans decide that putting their story out into the world, under their own terms, might change public perception of Holmes. Bizarrely they decide that Nathan Fielder, the comedian / performance artist best known for his TV series Nathan for You and The Rehearsal, would be the best man for that job. With so much already said about Holmes and her story would Fielder gain anything from documenting this period of Holmes life? Perhaps that’s why she offered that Fielder and the audience can see everything.

You don’t need to know everything about Elizabeth Holmes to follow this documentary, but for the sake of this review, here’s a little background. Holmes was billed as the next Steve Jobs, an inventor that could change humanity forever. Her invention, developed by Theranos, could analyze a simple drop of blood and run hundreds of medical blood tests. Say goodbye to the traditional blood draws of today. The only problem is that the machine couldn’t do everything that was promised and Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors based on false claims. 

A month before Holmes was set to serve a lengthy prison sentence, she reached out to Fielder (and co-director Lance Oppenheim) to document her day-to-day life. Her reasons for allowing Fielder into her life remain hazy at best. Was she simply trying to rehabilitate her image, to prove that she wasn’t what people imagined her to be or were there other reasons? The documentary does explore this to the best of its ability, but it's hard to take Holmes at her word. During the first half of You Can See Everything, Fielder does his best to examine the mind of Holmes– is she one of the greatest manipulators who ever lived, or does she simply see the world differently than everyone else. 

Spoilers for You Can See Everything follow

In one scene, Fielder asks Holmes and Evans to sit and watch a classic comedy bit with him. It’s a classic comedy bit from the American comedy duo Abbott and Costello. The humor of the sketch comes from misunderstanding language and the growing anger between the two performers. Most people would be able to understand why the sketch works, it's a play on words, but when Fielder asks Holmes whether the bit is funny, she agrees. But she also replies that she isn’t sure what makes it funny. Perhaps Holmes doesn’t understand the nuance of language, something that could be pivotal in how she views her innocence. 

Holmes eventually reports to prison to start her sentence, but there’s not enough there to make a truly compelling story. Fielder needs more time with Holmes or find a way to create more time. He’s certainly not going to get his answers from Evans, who comes across as the biggest villain of this documentary. No, Fielder needs to recreate moments he’s had with Holmes that weren’t allowed to be filmed for whatever reason. He’s no stranger to using these methods as he’s done this throughout his HBO series, The Rehearsal. He even brings in special guest stars to portray Holmes and Evans. There’s several moments in this second half of the movie that will make you not only question what is real, but also how something like this even happens. 

Fielder and Oppenheim aren’t the first documentary filmmakers to examine the boundaries of truth. Orson Welles tackled the topic back in 1973’s F for Fake, a documentary that asks whether filmmakers are any less deceptive than the con artists they portray. While Fielder and Oppenheim were given full access in You Can See Everything, they ultimately chose what to show to audiences. During some of the recreations, Fielder is simply creating scripts from his memory. How could an audience ever take that as the absolute truth? So not only is Holmes trying to create an image of herself, but this movie also deconstructs what audiences often take for granted in documentaries– that what we are seeing must be true because these filmmakers say so. All of this doesn’t even take into consideration the special guest stars must carry when they do their impersonations or how Evans is in control of Holmes' image while she’s incarcerated. Who is the real Elizabeth “Liz” Holmes and how much does she even care about that? 

You Can See Everything delivers what it promised and so much more. With access given to Fielder and the recreations of moments that he couldn’t film, it doesn’t seem like a stone has been left unturned. But when you are a public figure and the world has already made their determination of who you are, how could you ever be conceived as anything else? A.I. is capable of many amazing things, but nuance isn’t one of its strong suits. What the world has already decided is likely how you’ll be perceived. [A]

You Can See Everything is currently playing in limited theaters, before expanding this weekend.