Original Coverage & Source Attribution: graziadaily.co.uk
The unexpected box office smash hit of the year? A three-hour documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, created and directed by filmmaker (surrealist prankster) Nathan Fielder.
When You Can See Everything was first announced, it proved instantly divisive. Some critics questioned why Fielder, or any other filmmaker for that matter, would possibly want to give Holmes more air time. The businesswoman is after all a convicted fraudster. However, plenty of others were intrigued to see where Fielder would go with the film – and why.
The film is already out in the US, where it made $15 million on its debut and has just broken a 20-year box office record. It’s out in the UK in November. Here’s everything you need to know.
What is You Can See Everything about?
You Can See Everything is an experimental meta-documentary film directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. It is Fielder’s feature directorial debut.
It follows Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the defunct health technology company Theranos, and her partner of nine years Billy Evans. They invited a film crew to document their lives in the month running up to Holmes going to prison to serve her sentence for defrauding investors.
Despite having extensive access to their lives, Fielder suspects the couple is withholding information. Holmes also denies intentionally misleading anyone about Theranos’s purported blood-testing device. In the background, Evans speaks to investors about a new version of the device.
The first part ends with Holmes going to prison and saying goodbye to Evans and their two children, before resuming two years later as Fielder follows Evans’s development of the new medical company Haemanthus. Later, Fielder visits Holmes in prison and subsequently reenacts the meeting.
You Can See Everything explores Holmes’ legacy, her relationship with Evans and his role in controlling her public image, as well as Fielder’s relationship with the couple and the subject matter as he gets deeper into the weeds of their lives.
What did Elizabeth Holmes do?
Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 when Holmes was 19 years old. The company claimed to have developed a proprietary automated machine (Edison) capable of performing hundreds of blood tests – from cholesterol and diabetes to cancer markers – quickly and cheaply using a single drop of blood from a finger prick.
It raised more than $700 million from venture capitalists and private investors, resulting in a $9 billion valuation at its peak in 2013 and 2014.
Things went south in 2015 when medical research professor John Ioannidis, professor of clinical biochemistry Eleftherios Diamandis and investigative journalist John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal questioned Theranos’s validity.
The technology did not work as advertised. It could only reliably perform a small fraction of the tests and Theranos secretly diluted samples or abandoned the technology, instead opting for standard blood-testing equipment behind closed doors.
By 2016, Forbes estimated that Holmes’ personal net worth had dropped from $4.5 billion to ‘nothing’. Theranos, Holmes and the former company president Sunny Balwani were charged with fraud in 2018. Holmes was also charged with wire fraud and conspiracy. She was found guilty on four counts in January 2022 and sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison. Balwani was sentenced to 12 years and 11 months in prison.
How was You Can See Everything made?
Rumour has it Holmes invited Fielder and his co-director to make a documentary about her to change public perception and reform her image before she went to prison.
Holmes and Evans sought out a production team and approached A24 with the idea. Unlike earlier projects about her career and crimes, such as The Inventor and The Dropout, she wanted an active role in the film.
You Can See Everything was produced in secret over the course of three years.
Who is Nathan Fielder?
Although he is probably hoping You Can See Everything will change this, Fielder is best known for his awkward, deadpan persona in his parody reality show Nathan For You.
The Canadian American filmmaker, actor and comedian was part of his high school’s improv group along with Seth Rogen. He started his career as a correspondent for CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes. In 2011, he wrote and appeared on the American sketch show Important Things with Demetri Martin.
In 2013, he started Nathan For You on Comedy Central, which ran until 2017. He has also worked on How To with John Wilson, The Rehearsal and The Curse. In 2023, he featured on Time’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
What records has You Can See Everything broken?
After the film’s $15 million opening weekend in the US, tickets for UK screenings are selling out before it’s even been released.
Clare Binns, the creative director of Picturehouse Cinemas, said the excitement is reminiscent of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie in 2023. ‘People are hungry in a way that we haven’t really seen since then,’ she said. ‘And for it to be a three-hour documentary, it’s bonkers.’
‘It’s fantastic, it proves again that there’s a different kind of audience coming to the cinema. They came to see Backrooms, they came to see Obsession, they came to see NAZA. There’s a real appetite for smart films that talk to an audience differently than the studios have talked to them before.’
When is You Can See Everything out in cinemas?
You Can See Everything is out in UK cinemas on 20 November.
Nikki Peach is a senior writer at Grazia, working across news, entertainment, features. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things pop culture for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow with equal respect).
