I watched the movie You Can See Everything last week, and I highly recommend it. It stands on its own as a monumental portrait of today’s post-post-truth world. The genius of the movie is that everything is clearly stated in the movie, yet there is so much joy in peeling the many layers of the onion.
Note: spoilers abound below.
(1) Everything You See
Taken at face value, the movie is a documentary, which through random fortune, Nathan Fielder and crew are given full access to interview and follow along with Elizabeth Holmes and her family, days before she goes to prison. We (the audience) thus get a voyeuristic view into a disgraced figure’s personal life. Holmes comes off as deluded and flawed, but the movie appears largely sympathetic towards her, with a lot of the issues and problems pointing to her romantic interests: Sunny Balwani during Theranos, and Billy Evans today. On the surface, Billy is portrayed as the villain and Elizabeth the victim to his narcissistic, manipulative, and psychopathic tendencies. WIth the film’s nudging, we are led to believe that she incredulously but truly believes that she’s innocent, and although few would believe she should be exonerated, at least we should have a bit more empathy and understanding about her situation.
(2) Characters
But wait a minute. Why would Nathan Fielder, known for his deadpan comedy and critical view of reality as an act (with all of us acting our parts, as in The Rehearsal), want to interview Elizabeth Holmes? Maybe, there’s something intriguing about the narrative of applying the “Fielder Method” towards a figure such as Holmes. A higher-stakes and more “real” version of what he’s done on TV for so many years. He, an actor and master manipulator of reality, relishing the opportunity to spar against Holmes, another master manipulator with a reality distortion field akin to Steve Jobs, over a series of 3-D chess interviews in order to suss out what’s true and what’s an act. Throughout the movie, we do see a fairly enlightening character study of Holmes. And we see Fielder ask very direct and tough questions, put Elizabeth and Billy in awkward situations (like showing them the “Who’s on First” Abbott and Costello skit, and the dramatized version of Holmes in The Dropout), and generally trying to disarm them with his characteristic awkward persona.
And why would Elizabeth Holmes give full access to Fielder and crew to make a documentary about her? The explanation in the movie is that she wants to tell the truth and set the record straight. But then why let Nathan Fielder, basically a subdued Borat character, be the interviewer? Again, the nominal explanation in the movie is that he’s an outsider who thinks differently. A critical part of the movie’s narrative arc is that Fielder seems to feel and build some empathy towards Holmes.
(3) To Be Seen
I don’t really buy either explanation at that level though. Holmes and Theranos have been pored over and excessively covered in the past decade. The public verdict has been set and essentially unchanged in that time period. It would be irrational for Holmes to believe that any amount of retelling from her perspective would change public sentiment. Especially because, as Fielder noted in the movie, the default assumption is an extreme skepticism towards anything she says, given that her primary claim to fame is her superior ability to lie.
So what’s the motivation for Elizabeth? It’s actually true that she has no economic interests or gains from the movie, because as she noted any gains would be automatically garnished for lawsuit settlements. At least for that statement, she doesn’t need to lie. I believe the real benefit to her is publicity. The movie was a huge boost for her in the public mindshare, and even bad publicity is good publicity for someone in her situation.
I think this publicity is also the main reason for Billy agreeing to this documentary. In fact, his notoriety and being cast as the villain probably made him gain the most from this endeavor. I personally had no idea who he was before watching the movie. And like Elizabeth, I think “bad publicity” was his best and only shot at improving his situation at the time.
(4) Documentary?
Rationally, I don’t think Fielder and team expected to actually unearth any new insights from a retrenched Holmes who would gain nothing from actually telling the truth. They must have expected her to stick to her guns, which would make an interesting character study but not necessarily yield a great documentary or movie. This is where the movie’s greater arc plays its role.
The first half of the movie, the actual documentary portion ending with Holmes being sent to prison, is really the inner story, like a play-within-a-play. The fact that the movie doesn’t end there is ample evidence that the movie isn’t a documentary per se, and is actually a meta-documentary, i.e., documenting the documentary making process.
Pulling in Amanda Seyfried makes it unambiguous that the movie is not really an Elizabeth Holmes documentary. Seyfried re-enacting Holmes in a “real” manner as recollected by Fielder (notionally because the team wasn’t allowed to record certain phone calls and couldn’t bring cameras into prison) makes it clear that the movie is about Elizabeth Holmes the character and not Elizabeth Holmes the person. What would otherwise be a gauche gimmick of bringing in the actress to reenact scenes turns into a critical aspect of the movie’s meta-commentary. The fact that, near the end of the movie, Seyfried is the one interviewing Fielder about the documentary further reinforces this meta-commentary.
(5) You See Everything
When looked at from this angle, the “twists” in the movie, such as Billy requesting monetary compensation for the documentary or exactly what Elizabeth said in certain contexts, are in fact primarily devices for the meta-documentary instead of revealing any particular insights about either Billy or Elizabeth.
For example, Fielder and crew would obviously have known about Billy’s request before the documentary started. It appears to be a dramatic reveal in the second half of the movie because that fits the meta-narrative arc. The strength of these twists are that they are direct commentaries on the integrity and process of creating a documentary, and how much we can expect documentaries to actually document objective truths. How biases can creep into a truth seeking session, magnified by the subject who remains unknowable except through the sheen of lies.
What was promised by the movie’s title is actually delivered. We do indeed see everything, not into the character or person of Elizabeth Holmes as we are initially led to believe, but instead into the documentary making process of Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim.