Full spoilers follow for You can see everythingwhich is currently in theaters.
“The devil’s greatest trick was to convince the world that he didn’t exist.” — The usual suspects
You Can See Everything is, rightly, one of the most talked about films of the year, and is break box office records for documentaries. The production itself is impressive, often surprising and effective. But the film’s staying power lies in its dimension as a social experiment aimed at determining whether any of us really knows, cares, or communicates what is “real” outside of our own interests. Truth exists on a spectrum in the world of this film, and it often feels like a narcissistic game of whack-a-mole.
Liar or wired differently?
We understand that co-directors Nathan Fielder (Nathan for You) and Lance Oppenheim (Primetime) have not given a definitive answer as to whether Elizabeth Holmes is a liar; according to the legal system and whistleblowers is what she is, after her company Theranos was revealed to be selling, essentially, a blood testing machine that didn’t actually work. What the film asks is whether Holmes understand whether she is lying, or whether she can discern the difference between what she wants and what is. It’s like crafting a “not guilty by reason of insanity” defense for fraud.
For years, experts and armchair psychiatrists have speculated that Holmes suffers from narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and sociopathic or psychopathic tendencieseven though she has no public diagnosis. Yet in You Can See Everything, there are moments where Holmes seems neurodivergent in a way that reframes her entire story. This is to say nothing of the fact that her partner, Billy Evans, is (at least on screen) extremely controlling and the relationship often seems abusive. In the film’s universe, Holmes sometimes appears as a victim and the most sympathetic character. So the questions arise: was she manipulated by her original romantic and business partner, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, whom Holmes met when she was 18 and he was 37? Is this model playing out now with Evans? Is she a narcissistic sociopath, or does she have a spectrum that prevents her from reading social cues and understanding the nuances of language to such an extent that she can lie without knowing she is?
The first truly jaw-dropping moment in You Can See Everything is when Fielder shows Holmes and Evans the famous Abbott and Costello sketch “Who’s on First?” » She finds it funny, but insists that she didn’t understand that the first baseman’s name was “Who”, which is the crux of the joke. As Fielder insists, she becomes visibly upset by her own confusion and Evans sends her to bed like a child. Time and time again, the film suggests that her discernment is inhibited and that she doesn’t use language the way we all do. Evans says his brain just works differently.
Fielder is conducting this experiment because a question arose earlier regarding Holmes’ wording in a clip he plays for her, in which she says that the Theranos blood testing device “can” run the tests without specifying that it is not possible Again. Holmes and Evans take the machine out of storage to demonstrate what she meant: it was possible that the machine itself worked, but testing had not caught up with its capabilities. The implication is that what was taken as a lie was actually Holmes’ inability to understand linguistic nuances. Could it be, we wonder, that this woman did terrible things, but also that her real neurological problems were misunderstood in such a way that her sentence did not reflect reality?
Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz wants to disabuse us of this speculation. Talk to CBShe stated that he almost jumped out of his seat during the sequence introducing the Theranos device because, in his opinion, it was not the machine they were using on patients, but a future version that was never finished. According to him, the film revives Theranos just enough to sow doubt in the public’s mind. This brings us to a larger point, Shultz emphasizes: This is not a documentary. This is a very well-made film and an intelligently told story, which, in a way that the filmmakers are most certainly aware of, and perhaps some are not, holds a fun mirror up to the truth and to all of us.
Showmen, not documentarians
The question of who manipulates who begins with the film itself. Holmes and Evans presented a “documentary” to tell their side of the story, and the filmmakers used the same unregulated label to tell theirs. No one has had to face a real standardized legal hurdle to grasp the “truth”. Generally speaking, when it comes to documentaries and entertainment, courts seem to rely on an imagined “reasonable viewer” who recognizes the dramatization and has sufficient discernment to distinguish entertainment from reality. When Olivia de Havilland sued FX for Feud seriesthe court did not seem to believe that an audience would interpret a docudrama as fact. This defense can hold even on an information network. When Fox News sued over Tucker Carlson showFox’s lawyers argued that no reasonable viewer would believe what he said was factually accurate. The judge agreed, writing that given Carlson’s reputation, his viewers arrive “with an appropriate degree of skepticism” and dismissed the case.
But research suggests that real viewers simply don’t make these distinctions. A study from the University of Washington found that when a film contradicted an accurate text, students remembered the misinformation from the film up to half the time. Perhaps more importantly, a blanket warning that the films may be inaccurate did not change the outcome; only a specific warning about this particular error had any impact. According to the Telegraphthe share of UK viewers who think The Crown is an accurate telling of history has increased from 19% to 27% between 2022 and 2023. Worrying, perhaps, but understandable; they call it suspension of disbelief for a reason. Basically, we’re not very good at analyzing fact and fiction, even in the best of circumstances.
Given this, if the goal is precision, it is notable that Fielder and Oppenheim were tapped for this project. It’s not Ken Burns Or Errol Morris. These are showmen whose work seems, for years, to blur the line between performance and reality. There are layers of irony here. Oppenheim just released Primetime, a film about how To Catch a Predator animator Chris Hansen was willing to use and manipulate subjects to get what he needed to create a great story. Meanwhile, Hansen calls the film “complete work of fiction” and claims to have exploited his name and image for commercial purposes. And now Oppenheim has co-directed this film, about a notorious liar, who may be playing with ideas of truth itself. For his part, Fielder faced with questions on whether the way participants were portrayed in Nathan for You and The Rehearsal skirted ethical boundaries. To be clear, they are very good at what they do, and that doesn’t mean they are unethical. One of the focuses of the film is the idea that they are deliberately using their own reputations to ask very interesting questions. Another reason is that they framed bits of Holmes inside or outside, whichever suited their narrative.
Enter Amanda Seyfried
Certainly, there are times when they know they’re pulling a trick, and as viewers we wonder if they’re daring the audience to catch them. One of the film’s big twists comes just when you think the story is over: Holmes has gone to prison, and you can almost feel yourself in the editing room with Fielder and Oppenheim when they realize that what they have is interesting, but not enough to really break through. You could almost hear one of them saying, “Let’s turn things around. We had Liz look at the fictional version of herself; let’s do the opposite with Amanda.” But we don’t know what really happened. We know that watching Amanda Seyfried and Elizabeth Holmes look at each other brings a bit of voyeuristic joy.
Years ago, I heard the story of a filmmaker who shot a brutal car accident scene based on a deeply traumatic incident a friend had told him about, without his permission. At the film’s premiere, he invited her to sit with him, without telling her what he had done, and then, as her story came to life on screen, he just… stared at her, waiting to see her reaction. There’s something chilling about that. Fielder’s footage showing The Dropout to Holmes (the Hulu series where Seyfried played Holmes) and his movie to Seyfried reminded me of this incident. To be clear, I’m not saying that Fielder is that man. But the impulse seems related. It’s like, “I want to see what it looks like when you’re faced with shame or pain or grief…I want to watch you see how that happens inside of you.” » And in the case of You Can See Everything: I then want to show the world what that looks like. It’s a voyeuristic impulse that many have, and another way in which the film challenges audiences to confront the spectrum of acceptable and verboten acts, and what it means to use others and present an image to the world for one’s own ends.
(Here’s the thing: This story is all hearsay. I can’t say with 100% certainty that it’s true. But I told it, you believed it, and now that I’ve said it might not be the case, you don’t know what to believe. Welcome to You Can See Everything.)
Seyfried is a wonderful actress and, by all accounts, a very good human (she has a farm full of rescued animals). She even cares enough about Holmes, without being a fan, to tell Fielder that she hated seeing the other woman in a toxic relationship with him. Evans. And yet…
Gn entert
