You Can See Everything, Except the Truth

So let me get this straight: a convicted fraudster and her Svengali fiancé agree to be filmed by two puckish directors known for making borderline-derisive documentaries that explore notions of authenticity. Why would anyone expect the truth?

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You Can See Everything ★★★ (3/5 stars)
Directed by: Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim
Running time: 174 mins

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The admittedly entertaining You Can See Everything is an outrageous watch, full of unexpected reveals and shocking twists along its wildly circuitous narrative. To paraphrase one of the film’s participants, the whole experience is “batshit crazy.” But it also feels like a portrait of two disingenuous people made by two other disingenuous people, all of whom are pretending to be sincere — both to each other and to the world. This is pure 360-degree opportunism fronting as a revelatory exposé exploring the nature of reality. It’s don’t-bullshit-a-bullshitter cinema.

In the spring of 2023, co-directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim were given unprecedented access to former Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who defrauded her investors out of $500 million for claiming to have invented a revolutionary way to run blood tests. She and her long-time partner and investor Billy Evans, thought it would be a good way to rehabilitate her image by documenting the 34 days before she reports for an 11-year prison sentence.

At the time, they also had a two-year-old son and baby daughter, and they wanted a candid portrait of their family life — which, to them, meant “radical transparency” presented as 24/7 around-the-clock surveillance in their rented San Diego beach house, so much so that Fielder allegedly moves in with them. There’s even a shot of Billy in the shower with full-frontal nudity. See? They’re so unguarded!

Already I’m dubious, especially when a sinister soundtrack of drone-heavy music blankets the events, and a lurking Fielder keeps popping up in the background quietly spying on them. Whenever Holmes or Evans says anything remotely suspicious, the film gleefully cuts to yet another reaction shot of a skeptical Fielder.

We overhear intimate conversations between Holmes and Evans that happen in other rooms. Are they really wearing mics all the time — even when they’re in the bathroom or sleeping at night? We just need to trust the filmmakers that they are. Or, if they’re not, then we have to trust the subjects to honor their “radical transparency” and not have unguarded off-camera conversations. Again, seems hard to believe.

“You didn’t commit a crime?” Fielder asks Holmes. “I know I didn’t,” she replies. Is she lying? Of course. Do convicted felons claim that they’re innocent? All the time. “All I know is my truth,” she says, and starts to cry, as Fielder looks on with a blank stare. “I’ve never tried to deceive anyone,” she says later, clinging to that I-cannot-tell-a-lie conviction, even when Fielder presses her on the veracity of her presumed lifelong ban on even little fibs. Of course people are never totally candid, it’s silly that she can’t even admit to that, and it’s even sillier that he’s so flabbergasted.

Holmes, with her kewpie doll eyes and unblinking stare, doesn’t help her case, and comes across as either totally committed to the con or just deeply deluded — or both. Fielder, naturally, is having a field day with it, clearly mocking his subjects from the first frame and expecting them to do nothing but deceive. Incidentally, who could blame him? Evans claims that he had never heard of Fielder or Oppenheim (fair enough) and agreed to the project without ever watching any of their work (wait, what?).

Evans reveals his true colors pretty quickly, cooing his support to his wife and then saying things like “she’s not normal” later to Fielder. He claims to have met her without knowing who she was, and then falling in love and marrying her regardless once he did know. His wily half-truths and odd declarations even give Fielder pause. “Why are you being so weird and cryptic with your words?” he even asks him point-blank.

At one point, Fielder asks them to show him Therano’s failed Edison device — which they still claim can work. And that launches into a metaphysical discourse on the definition of the word “can.”  Which then leads to Fielder showing them Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First?”, the comedy duo’s classic miscommunication routine. Which Holmes claims to have never heard of, and, after watching, claims not to understand at all. Which proves her behavior is either impressively humorless or truly insane — or both. “She just thinks differently,” says Evans in her defense, saying that it’s one of his wife’s most beautiful qualities. Which only shows that he doesn’t seem to care which or both of those behaviors comprise her personality .

Believe it or not, Evans and Holmes are working on a new venture: launching a new cutting-edge tech company in the health sector that claims to do the exact same thing as Edison. But this time they’re proposing a new photometric laser technology called “flash chemiluminescence.” Billy refers to it as Theranos 2.0. At which point, Fielder says, “Isn’t it weird that I made a TV show about business scams?” Is this all a joke or is it real? The answer to both is yes.

The list of odd moments gets longer. Fielder discovers that Holmes’ dad used to work at the criminally scandal-plagued energy company Enron. Her dad tells Fielder that Holmes was raped. Fielder suggests that he turn off all the recording equipment so Holmes and Evans can have sex one last time. He even gives her a gag goodbye gift of hair dye and sunglasses so she can make a prison break.

And that doesn’t even touch on the second half of the film, which reveals the increasingly controlling Evans to be a gun-toting Charlie Kirk lover who’s created an AI version of his wife, ghost-writes messages on Holmes’ X account, and has total power of attorney over her. The film even brings in an Oscar-nominated actress to re-create moments Fielder had with Holmes — things that supposedly happened before they started filming, plus things that supposedly happened which they were not allowed to record.

The climax is an extended scene where Fielder recounts a visit with Holmes in prison, during which he and the aforementioned actress — now a committed collaborator in the film’s story—deliver pages and pages of dialogue. And we, the audience, are supposed to believe that the event transpired in the way that he described with a script that he claims to have written from memory. There’s even a suggestion that Fielder has not only grown more sympathetic to Holmes but that he might even have romantic feelings towards her.

The very existence of You Can See Everything is a fascinating example of shrewd marketing for all involved. B.T. Barnum’s adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity has never been more apt than in the Trump era, where villains self-lionize and truth is whatever you want it to be. Holmes and Evans exemplify our age of ever-constant spin and craven self-promotion. They’re really not that complicated: she seems like damaged goods who is so desperate for someone to love and protect her that she turns a blind eye to her husband’s bad behavior, and he is trying to profit from her name and image as long as he can give her a self-soothing sense of plausible deniability.

Fielder and Oppenheim, meanwhile, are more than happy to capture their deceit, and amplify it with their own deceitful filmmaking methods. Because all documentaries are — to a great extent — built on lies. The camera only captures what’s in front of it. Editing juxtaposes incongruous moments for dramatic effect. Music manipulates emotions. The film’s duration conflates time. The final product is a collection of curated moments, a selected interpretation of events. And the audience needs to trust in the veracity of what they’re being shown — even when they’re aware of all the obvious manipulations inherent in the medium. The question boils down to intent. Are the documentarians being sincere? Or are they manipulating you? Who is fucking with whom?

Non-fiction titans like Frederick Wiseman, Errol Morris, and Werner Herzog made careers out of exploring the nature of reality. But they also conveyed an earnestness about their efforts to convey that truth; there’s a sincerity that gives their films an undeniable integrity. In comparison, Fielder and Oppenheim come off as pranksters pretending to be philosopher detectives. (In interviews, they’ve explained that they got the idea for the film while they were literally watching a magic trick.) If they have any meaning to convey beyond just the cynical shock-and-awe of their incredulous three-hour distraction, it’s the nothingburger observation that truth is subjective. You Can See Everything is the movie we deserve: an absurdist documentary for our absurdist time.