You Can See Everything: Fielder's Unsettling Holmes

The documentary You Can See Everything will be released in the US on October 16. Co-directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, the film premiered at the New York Film Festival and provides a stark portrait of Elizabeth Holmes and Billy Evans in the weeks before Holmes reported to prison to serve an 11-year sentence for wire fraud and conspiracy related to her blood-testing startup, Theranos.

Subject and Intent

Elizabeth Holmes and her husband, business partner Billy Evans, who entered her life after Theranos collapsed, sought out the film crew in 2023. Their stated intent was to document their domestic life with their two young children to protest her innocence and potentially rebrand for a future venture. The filming took place in a household rental that year, capturing their daily routines as Holmes awaited incarceration.

Directors’ Styles

The film is a collision of two distinct directorial approaches. Nathan Fielder, the absurdist comedian behind HBO's The Rehearsal, brings his signature style of sharp angles and needling questions that dispense with social buffers. He directly asks Holmes, "Are you being real right now?" Lance Oppenheim, a wunderkind documentarian whose narrative feature debut Primetime premiered last month, contributes a hyper-saturated visual style. His camera uses tight frames and creeping zooms that hug then bore into a face with laser-like curiosity. This combination scrutinizes Holmes's disposition, which oscillates between guileless warmth and palpable performance.

Film Content and Reception

With a three-hour runtime rated R for language and some graphic nudity, the documentary is described as a psychological masterpiece. One person appears fully nude, though the distributor A24 will not say who. A key scene features Billy Evans lying with Holmes on a playroom floor, where he claims, "the best way for people to see who she is … is to give as much access as possible into our daily lives."

Reviewers found the film more shocking, twistier, and more revealing than billed. It builds a strange chemistry within what feels like a reality distortion field, playing like an unraveling of certainty in real time. Described as a stupefying hall of psychological mirrors, it examines the fragility and absurdities of trust. The film avoids spoiling its major shifts, relying on surprise, and is scored like a drama and filmed like a thriller. Accounts note the filmmakers seemed genuinely uncertain of what they had walked into.

The documentary also raises questions about Billy Evans's own reservations, dating back to when he met Holmes at a party in 2017. It debuted at a surprise screening at the Telluride Film Festival, and unsettling trailers have featured Holmes maintaining her innocence. The film is set to hit US theaters on October 16, with UK and Australian release dates still to be announced.