Nathan Fielder's Elizabeth Holmes Doc Defies Explanation

Nathan Fielder has established himself as one of the most subversive and compelling comedians working today, with a unique ability to blur the lines between fiction and reality. Whether through the painfully awkward social experiments of Nathan for You, or the existentially unsettling nature of The Rehearsal, he has consistently demonstrated an interest in pushing his projects far beyond the boundaries of conventional comedy. His work is often hilarious, but it is just as frequently uncomfortable, deeply strange, and surprisingly profound in its examination of human behavior.

Even by Fielder’s standards, however, You Can See Everything is an entirely different beast. A documentary that evolves into something considerably more bizarre, ambitious, and thought-provoking than its premise initially suggests, the film may well be his most out-there project yet.

Co-directed by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, You Can See Everything follows Elizabeth Holmes in the thirty-four days leading up to her imprisonment following the collapse of Theranos, the blood-testing company she founded. Holmes and her husband, Billy, invite Fielder and his skeptical film crew into their home, providing the filmmakers with unprecedented access to their domestic lives and allowing Fielder to question Holmes directly about her culpability in one of Silicon Valley’s most infamous scandals.

What begins as an intimate portrait of a disgraced entrepreneur preparing to enter prison gradually develops into something far more complex. Fielder’s unusual approach to documentary filmmaking transforms the film into an increasingly fascinating investigation of truth, manipulation, and the ways in which people perceive themselves and others.

Nathan Fielder’s Unconventional Approach To Elizabeth Holmes

Few public figures in recent memory have inspired the same level of fascination as Elizabeth Holmes. Her meteoric rise as the supposed next Steve Jobs, followed by the spectacular collapse of Theranos, transformed her from a celebrated tech entrepreneur into one of the most notorious figures in corporate America. The public became fixated on everything from her distinctive wardrobe to her unblinking stare, and debated whether she was a calculated fraudster or someone who had become so consumed by her own ambition that she genuinely believed the lies she told. It is precisely this uncertainty that makes Holmes such a compelling subject for You Can See Everything, a documentary that proves even more absorbing than its premise might suggest.

Following a brief introduction to Holmes and the Theranos scandal, Fielder and his crew embed themselves within the home of Holmes, Billy, and their two young children. The degree of access is remarkable, particularly given the notoriety of the person at the center of the film. Ordinarily, one might expect a documentary of this nature to be helmed by a seasoned journalist or documentarian armed with carefully constructed questions and a clear investigative agenda. Fielder, however, is a comedian, and his approach to understanding Holmes is decidedly different.

The humor here is rarely the sort that produces outright laughter, but, instead, emerges through Fielder’s awkward facial expressions, uncomfortable pauses, and startlingly blunt questions, all of which make his interactions with Holmes and Billy fascinating to observe. All this discomfort is amplified tenfold by Fielder and Oppenheim’s decision to use extreme close-ups throughout their film, allowing the audience to witness the subtleties of every micro-expression.

Despite being a comedian by trade, Fielder approaches his subject with a surprising degree of earnestness, allowing his confusion, curiosity, and occasional disbelief to emerge without attempting to disguise them behind the polished demeanor of a conventional documentarian. His reactions to the strange dynamic between Holmes and Billy feel remarkably authentic (an early scene involving eggs highlights this), as does his difficulty in determining whether Holmes knowingly deceived investors or genuinely convinced herself that her company would eventually deliver on its promises.

The film gradually takes on the qualities of a mystery, with Fielder and the audience attempting to determine what, exactly, is happening inside Holmes’ mind. A particularly captivating sequence in which Fielder, Holmes, and Billy sit on a couch and watch Abbott and Costello’s classic “Who’s on First?” routine together becomes an unexpectedly revealing examination of communication and perception. A testament to the layers at play in the film, this scene poses a mystery within a mystery: Is Holmes a master manipulator, or does she genuinely see the world differently?

A Mid-Film Twist Changes Everything

Much of the conversation surrounding You Can See Everything after its surprise premiere at Telluride has centered on a significant mid-film twist that radically alters the direction of the documentary. Although the specifics of this development are best left undisclosed, its impact on the narrative is substantial. What initially appears to be an intimate, mystery-driven documentary about a controversial public figure gradually transforms into a considerably more inventive film that is ultimately difficult to categorize, or even aptly compare to anything else. The shift is not merely a clever narrative maneuver designed to surprise the audience. Instead, it fundamentally changes the way viewers are encouraged to interpret the material that both precedes and follows it.

It’s through this twist that Fielder’s particular sensibilities prove especially valuable. His previous work has consistently demonstrated an interest in the distance between what people present to the world and what they actually believe, as well as the strange consequences that emerge when reality is manipulated in the name of entertainment, self-improvement, or personal fulfillment. You Can See Everything takes these interests to a new extreme, using its unusual circumstances to interrogate the very process through which a documentary constructs its subject.

Every interaction, every uncomfortable exchange, and every apparent revelation takes on additional significance as the narrative develops. Fielder’s presence becomes more than a source of awkward comedy, while the intimacy of the footage raises increasingly complicated questions about the relationship between filmmaker and subject. The documentary’s greatest strength is its ability to continually expand its own premise and reinvent itself, transforming what initially appears to be a relatively straightforward portrait into one of the most ambitious films in recent years.

A Cerebral Documentary That Demands Discussion

Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes staring at each other over a couch in You Can See Everything

Perhaps the most impressive accomplishment of You Can See Everything is the sheer number of ideas it manages to explore without losing sight of its central subject. Across its bulky, 174-minute runtime, the film examines love, romance, prejudice, bias, responsibility, independence, abuse, filmmaking ethics, and the complicated relationship between truth and perception. These themes are not simply introduced and abandoned as the story progresses. Rather, they accumulate, overlap, and challenge one another. The documentary becomes startlingly more thought-provoking with each passing development.

Fielder and Oppenheim demonstrate an extraordinary ability to extract meaning from seemingly mundane interactions…

In this sense, Fielder and Oppenheim’s film is complex, but not convoluted. While the bones of the story are easy to follow, the film’s intellectual appeal stems from its willingness to take familiar human experiences and subject them to an unusually high degree of scrutiny. The audience is invited to investigate the mystery of Holmes alongside Fielder, but the film also encourages viewers to question their own assumptions about the people they observe.

How much of our understanding of another person is based on evidence, and how much is shaped by our own biases? Can someone genuinely believe in a false version of reality while simultaneously manipulating others into believing it? And what responsibility does a filmmaker have when the act of documenting a person inevitably influences the story being told?

All of these questions (and more) give the documentary a remarkable degree of depth, ensuring that its impact extends well beyond the immediate fascination of watching Holmes navigate the final days before her imprisonment. Fielder and Oppenheim demonstrate an extraordinary ability to extract meaning from seemingly mundane interactions, allowing awkward conversations and domestic exchanges to become windows into far more complicated psychological and ethical questions.

A nearly three-hour documentary about a widely covered public figure may not sound that appealing to the average moviegoer, but such a description belies just how layered, enthralling, and thought-provoking You Can See Everything is.

You Can See Everything releases in theaters nationwide on Friday, October 16.