Somewhere, an awards publicist is trying to put Elizabeth Holmes, Nathan Fielder, and “For Your Consideration” on the same tasteful advertisement. Bring cigarettes. You Can See Everything, directed by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, begins with Holmes inviting a documentary crew into her life thirty-four days before prison, then expands into a three-year undertaking. Apparently, nobody could locate the emergency brake.
Think about that confidence. Your public image has survived a federal prosecution about as well as a lawn chair survives a hurricane, and your next move is more footage. But America breeds this confidence. Give somebody a stage, a microphone, and enough wealthy people terrified of missing the next big thing, and the money starts moving. Ask whether the fucking product works and suddenly you are the asshole interrupting progress.
Fielder brings the threat of a question left hanging long after a polite person would have rescued the conversation. His comic persona makes hospitality feel like a deposition conducted by someone who has misplaced the next page. Yet the camera deserves scrutiny, too. Somebody chooses the frame, somebody makes the cut, and somebody decides which terrible silence gets to explain another human being.
The uncomfortable possibility is that affection and accountability can occupy the same room. Someone can love her family and still owe answers that a tender domestic moment cannot supply. That should be obvious, but our celebrity rehabilitation machinery runs on the assumption that a sufficiently touching scene will make everybody forget why the cameras arrived. Cue the piano. Somebody find a dog.
That is where the Oscar argument gets interesting: access, authorship, and the ugly transaction between being understood and being turned into entertainment. I teach film. I believe in looking closely. I also know that looking closely can become a sophisticated excuse for staring. We want the contradiction, the revealing pause, the moment somebody exposes themselves. Preferably something we can describe over drinks afterward.
An awards campaign could sell this as an urgent examination of truth in contemporary America. Lovely. Put it above the laurels. Underneath sits the more uncomfortable proposition: Holmes wants control of her story, the filmmakers want answers, and we want a verdict before the parking validation expires. Everybody has an angle, and the title promises everything.
Christ. Even the documentary has a pitch. You Can See Everything is now playing.
MPAA Rating: PG-13.
Runtime: 174 mins
Director: Nathan Fielder; Lance Oppenheim
Writer: T.J. Fixman
Cast: Amanda Seyfried; Christopher Abbott; Nathan Fielder
Genre: Crime Documentary
Tagline: A Documentary by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim
Memorable Movie Quote: "It's very complicated"
Distributor: A24
Official Site:
Release Date: October 16, 2026
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: Thirty-four days before she's sent to prison, notorious Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move. What begins as an intimate portrait becomes a mind-bending three-year journey.
