You Can See Everything: Nathan Fielder's Elizabeth Holmes Film Questions What Truth Is

You Can See Everything, the A24 film by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, is breaking box office records for a documentary. It captivates audiences with its bizarre access to Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced Theranos CEO, and her husband in the weeks before she went to prison in 2023. It's one of the most fascinating, hilarious, shocking and important movies I've seen, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.

The whole film has me questioning the nature of truth and the frightening and hilarious ways media can be manipulated to distort and reframe reality. I'll be spoiling its biggest twists here, so be warned. It runs nearly three hours, but it clips along, and you won't be able to stop talking about it as you leave the theater.

Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos story behind the film

Holmes founded Theranos, a medical tech company that aimed to revolutionize healthcare with a proprietary device it claimed could quickly diagnose any health condition from a drop of blood. Theranos raised hundreds of millions of dollars from high profile venture capitalists, including Larry Ellison, while Holmes and her then boyfriend Sunny Balwani tried to court deals with companies like Walgreens and Safeway.

The device never worked. Theranos, Holmes and Balwani were investigated over shady, deceptive business practices that led to fraud convictions for Balwani and Holmes in 2022, along with orders to pay huge sums in restitution. Holmes was sentenced to 11 years in prison, which she began serving in 2023.

The story was popularized by the 2022 Hulu series The Dropout, starring Amanda Seyfried as Holmes. It emphasized her reported quirks: manipulating and siloing employees, distorting media narratives, and obsessing over her green juice, her music, Apple products, Steve Jobs, her clothes and the practiced deeper pitch of her voice. That series is worth seeing too, because it's extremely relevant to this movie.

How Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder found their way to Holmes

Oppenheim is a young documentary filmmaker who made Some Kind of Heaven, about The Villages retirement community in Florida, and Spermworld, about sperm donation. This year he also made his first scripted drama, starring Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen. He became interested in a Holmes documentary after hearing A24 was interested in the project, and in a Vulture profile he said he was a fan of Fielder's Nathan for You.

If you don't know Fielder's work, you should. He's maybe one of the most interesting and important comedians working right now, and certainly one of the most cryptic. He's known for stunts ranging from Dumb Starbucks to the twist ending of The Curse with Emma Stone, and his obsession with Sully Sullenberger and pilot relationships, which included learning to fly a commuter jetliner, something he reportedly did while making this documentary.

Bizarrely, Oppenheim said he went into the back end of a press screener app and saw that Fielder had viewed 60% of one of his movies, information I was shocked to learn directors and studios can even see. He used that as an icebreaker to cold email Fielder. Fielder then invited him to the Magic Castle in Los Angeles. During a performance there, a magician asked the audience to shout out a celebrity, and someone shouted Elizabeth Holmes. That started the two of them talking to A24.

For years there were rumors that Fielder was possibly interviewing Holmes in prison, but we didn't know this movie existed until its surprise premiere at the Telluride Film Festival only six weeks ago. That's part of why it has built a cult following and become the most profitable documentary since Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004.

Thirty four days in a Del Mar beach cottage

In 2023, Holmes had moved to Del Mar in Southern California with Billy Evans, whom she met in 2017 and later married. She invited Fielder, Oppenheim and their crew into the rental beach cottage she shared with Evans and their two kids, 34 days before her prison term began. That's where the documentary starts.

The filmmakers are granted full access, including a shot of Evans fully nude in the shower, but Fielder suspects the couple aren't being entirely forthcoming and calls them out. When Fielder is frustrated by Holmes's semantics, Evans says, "I know how you feel." Fielder responds, "No, you don't." The original plan was for Fielder to stay off camera, but Holmes and Evans kept pulling him aside, and eventually Oppenheim felt it was impossible to make the movie without making Fielder an onscreen subject.

We also learn Holmes had seen what is, to me, the craziest clip from Nathan for You, where a gas station attendant talks about drinking his grandson's urine. Fielder challenges Holmes about her deceptive behavior and her dispute with The New York Times over quoting her as saying, "They're not playing me. They're playing a character I created." Holmes and Evans claim she said a character "they" created, and claim to have their own audio, but refuse to share it with the filmmakers or the Times.

Fielder notices controlling gestures from Evans, like taking a bowl of eggs out of Holmes's hands to scramble them properly, and he questions Evans's family wealth and whether the relationship is genuine. Holmes has always maintained her innocence, even to what is, in my opinion, a delusional place, and the documentary explores how she's still in complete denial over the fraud claims. Or maybe it isn't intentional at all.

The eye contact that blurs Fielder's role

Fielder is known for using his shy, introverted nature to blur the line between staging a scenario and having a real human moment. In past work, there are moments where he seems to develop romantic feelings for a woman he's coaching. Some moments come off that way here, particularly when he and Holmes stare into each other's eyes as he asks whether unbroken eye contact is how she would flirt with men in the tech world.

You look at the two of them inches from each other's faces and wonder whether they're about to kiss, or whether they're two broken, skewed people giving each other a creepy, birdlike stare.

Theranos 2.0, Who's on First and The Dropout

In the cottage, Holmes insists she never intentionally deceived anyone, while Evans discusses plans for a new iteration of a Theranos device with potential investors lined up. Fielder confirms with Evans that it's Theranos 2.0. The couple show him what they say are components of the blood testing device from the Theranos era. Medical researchers who have seen the movie note that the tech they showed in 2023 was not the original tech Theranos used to defraud investors.

Fielder struggles to understand the difference between submitting a blood sample on the device and the hypothetical chemistry that would have to be done elsewhere, and how that confused investors about whether the device can, rather than could, run any kind of blood test. He tries to get Holmes to explain the gap between what she intended to communicate and what investors understood her to be promising.

To get to the bottom of it, Fielder plays Abbott and Costello's Who's on First for the couple. They claim never to have heard it. Holmes smiles but admits she doesn't understand the joke, and Evans suggests that reflects her unconventional way of thinking. To me, that's the ultimate Turing test of the movie. It shows something is wrong with Holmes, though I'm not medically or psychologically trained enough to know what. Then Fielder shows them The Dropout, and when Balwani coaches Seyfried's Holmes on dressing sexy but not too sexy, the real Holmes gets upset and asks him to turn it off.

Two years later, an AI Holmes at the breakfast table

Before reporting to prison, Holmes undergoes a 3D body scan at Evans's request to create an AI version of her that could read bedtime stories to their kids. She expresses concern that this could become another situation like the infamous press photo she said she was compelled to pose for, which became her enduring image. The family then moves to Texas so she can surrender to Bryan federal prison and they can visit on weekends.

Two years later, Fielder returns and follows Evans as he develops a new company pursuing blood testing technology. Evans is quite weird now, keeping a big screen with an AI generated Holmes at the breakfast table. Fielder gets frustrated when Evans terminates an interview with an engineer who alleges Holmes did lie about Theranos's capabilities.

Amanda Seyfried steps back into the role

Then the documentary takes a truly shocking meta turn. Fielder meets Amanda Seyfried. Emma Stone, his co star from The Curse and a friend of Seyfried's, introduced them and is credited in the film's special thanks. Fielder shows Seyfried material from the first half, specifically Holmes reacting to Seyfried's portrayal. Seyfried has fascinating reactions and suggests she'd be interested in playing Holmes again in her post trial era.

So Fielder does what he does best in The Rehearsal and casts Seyfried to restage his interactions with Holmes that weren't filmed. Christopher Abbott joins to play Evans in these scenes. It's wild to imagine he's going to be our Professor X in the MCU.

Fielder's account of the A24 profit share dispute

Fielder reveals there was a dispute over Holmes and Evans signing their appearance releases. He recounts an unfilmed meeting with himself, Oppenheim, Holmes, Evans and two A24 executives. Fielder claims Holmes excused herself to tend to one of the kids, he thinks, and that Evans then asked for a share of the movie's profits, citing how Harry and Meghan were reportedly paid by Netflix for a documentary. They discussed what a huge conflict of interest that would be.

Fielder claims A24 reached a temporary profit sharing agreement with Evans while the movie was coming together, but suggests that if the deal stayed in place on release, he might have to walk away and the movie might never come out. Again, this is information Fielder is presenting to us, and he's teaching us to question everything we see. He then shows Seyfried a scene filmed days before prison where Holmes claims she didn't expect to make any money from the movie.

That creates the big mystery of the second half: did Holmes know Evans would make this demand and perhaps use him to do it, or did Evans try to profit off his imprisoned wife without her knowledge? Fielder and Seyfried, now basically the film's co star, find more examples of Evans shaping Holmes's persona: licensing her likeness for billboards tied to publicity stunts, staging a nightclub recreation of her arrest, and running her Twitter account. He says 80% of those tweets were copied from emails she sent him from prison without knowing they'd be used. Perhaps most frighteningly, he approved the public release of an AI model resembling her.

In a 2025 sitdown with Fielder, Seyfried and Oppenheim, Evans reveals Holmes signed over power of attorney to him, and Seyfried awkwardly has to talk with Holmes when she calls from prison. We learn Evans has embraced conservative politics and wanted to meet Seyfried to shame her for comments about Charlie Kirk and what he calls her deplorable depiction of his wife. He claims Holmes is aware of some aspects of his A24 arrangement, denies exploiting her, and threatens to destroy the lives of their enemies before backpedaling a little. It's frightening.

The prison visit Fielder had to reenact

Fielder struggles to arrange a one on one call with Holmes, during a period when he tells us he'd moved out of his house after a breakup. It's an unnecessary reveal that I think he deliberately gives us to set up the possibility he might be romantically compromised. He does get a prison visit, but since the prison didn't allow filming, he reenacts it with Seyfried, whose Holmes asks of The Dropout, "How could a woman do that to another woman?" It's crazy to see Seyfried say that about herself.

In Fielder's script of the visit, Holmes supports Evans's power of attorney, saying she owes hundreds of millions in restitution and leaves financial matters to her husband. She's vague about the A24 deal, and Fielder and Seyfried later wonder whether she said she knew they were talking about "it" or about "something." We see Seyfried play it both ways. Fielder describes Evans arriving with the kids as genuine love in his eyes, but Seyfried doesn't buy it and suggests his connection with Holmes may have compromised his judgment.

Then the film shows previously unseen scenes of Fielder swimming with Holmes outside the beach house, holding hands in the surf, which further complicates his relationship with his subject. It reminded us somewhat of Sarah Koenig's perceived relationship with Adnan Syed in Serial. Neither Fielder nor Seyfried reaches a definitive conclusion about Holmes's sincerity or motivations. The film ends with the real Holmes playing with her family in the prison yard, as Evans hands her turkey jerky, the same snack Fielder claims she asked him to buy her, suggesting he may now see it as a gesture of spousal love.

Who is the I in a character I created

Text at the end confirms Evans decided to forgo payment for the film, so you don't have to feel guilty about buying a ticket. It also says The New York Times stands by its reporting of the quote, which the filmmakers leave onscreen. After nearly three hours, with Seyfried playing Holmes through the back half, that quote takes on a completely different context.

My question is: who is the I in that sentence now? Fielder and Oppenheim? Seyfried? The Times quoting Holmes? We don't know. There are too many layers now to distinguish the truth. What we know as Elizabeth Holmes is an ensemble creation by all these actors, including Holmes herself using the media. I don't even think she knows who she is anymore.

Why I believe Seyfried is genuine and Fielder is performing

Many could see this as Fielder pulling another deceptively edited stunt, a master manipulator meeting arguably the greatest master manipulator of our times. How much of what Seyfried says might have been coached offscreen? Looking back, I do believe all her moments are genuine, because the documentary gives a brutally honest assessment of her as a public figure. It questions her claim that The Dropout was fiction, and Fielder seems to call her out for using that label to make the series immune from critiques of authenticity.

To me, The Dropout isn't exactly fiction or a documentary, but somewhere in between, and it's fair to ask whether moments like the device blowing up and spraying blood around the lab actually happened. I don't believe Holmes or Evans are profiting from this movie. Evans is painted in a truly villainous light, either as the sole villain or, more likely, a co villain manipulated as Holmes's attack dog, the way she arguably used Balwani at Theranos.

I also don't believe Fielder had true protective or romantic feelings for Holmes. I've followed his work too long, and I've seen him in real life; he isn't quite the odd duck he plays. Falling for any woman who talks softly inches from his face, playing the nerdy overthinker or the voyeur too involved with his subjects, it's all a brilliant comedic shtick he gets better at with every project. His dry but unflinchingly perceptive persona is a level of nuanced comedic delivery we haven't seen since Andy Kaufman, in my opinion.

A documentary in the tradition of Fahrenheit 9/11

I believe You Can See Everything is a brilliant film for the way it frames the manipulations of an infamous figure like Holmes within what feels like an episode of The Rehearsal. Is it fully a documentary? Back in 2004, many questioned Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 as too fictionalized or sensational for using things like sketch comedy to convey what he felt was the truth.

That's essentially what Fielder and Oppenheim are doing. The film is designed to make us question truth, question the performances public figures give when they know a camera is on them, and see how what we consider truth can be completely distorted within those performances.