You Can See Everything
Writer/Directors: Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim
Cast: Elizabeth Holmes, Billy Evans, Nathan Fielder
Nathan Fielder is on the periphery for the opening scenes of You Can See Everything, the new documentary he co-directed with Lance Oppenheim about entrepreneur, inventor, and convicted felon Elizabeth Holmes. He lurks, shoulders hunched and eyes low, on the periphery of domestic scenes, asking straightforward questions but holding back from inserting himself directly into Holmes' narrative. His job, as Holmes' husband Billy Evans says early on, is to "document" life in the Holmes household.
If only it were that simple.
The challenge of documenting Holmes' life, her perspective, and exactly why she continues to profess her innocence even after a very public trial and conviction is more than a creative obstacle in You Can See Everything. It is, ultimately, the entire narrative, and yet it is never, not once, a straight line. Dense, labyrinthine, hilarious and jaw-dropping, this film about a search for the truth in a world where that may no longer exist is not just an essential documentary movie for 2026. It might just be the best film you'll see this year.
In 2023, Fielder and Oppenheim (who appears on camera only briefly, letting Fielder take on the interviewer role) head to San Diego to film Holmes, Evans, and their two children in the weeks leading up to her surrender date for a federal prison term. What they find is a rented beach house bustling with activity as, in between meetings with judges and calls with lawyers, Holmes and Evans have set out to put yet another medical technology business venture out into the world. They want a "human story," which is why, they say, Fielder is there, and Fielder is certainly interested in their humanity. He wants to know how they met, how they fell in love even amid Holmes' legal troubles, why Billy trusts "Liz" so completely, and why Liz, despite everything, is still convinced she did absolutely nothing wrong.
This last question seems to be the primary thing on Fielder's mind, which is why the film begins with such conventional documentary beats. All the trappings of an all-access portrait are there, from shots of Holmes cooking for her family to shots of Holmes and Evans reading to their kids before bed, cuddling on the couch, and dreading her upcoming prison time. Oppenheim shoots it with remarkable polish, helped along by the beach just outside the window. It's cozy, even picturesque, and yet it is instantly, relentlessly unsettling. At one point, Holmes says she feels like she's in some kind of parallel universe where no one understands her, and the longer the film goes on, the more it really does feel like we've been granted a visit to another world, one where something as a simple as a direct answer to a question sets off a thousand existential quandaries.
And this other world is not always hospitable. At times the couple's answers to Fielder's questions are simply evasive, half-answers that point the way to potential follow-ups. Other times they're punts, as Evans swoops in to tell Holmes she has a call, or a baby's nap time, or some other reason to put off answering the question. Still other times, things get downright hostile, as Evans in particular pushes back against Fielder's documentarian instincts, the very things he was seemingly drafted to do in the first place. But again, these are conventional documentary issues, as anyone who's ever seen a good investigative doc knows. It's not uncommon for subjects to dodge questions. So why, watching the film in a screening room full of nervous energy thick enough to cut with a knife, was I so uncomfortable that at one point I literally stood up out of my seat?
It begins with the simple human principle that it's hard to trust anyone who won't stop emphasizing just how honest they're being with you, especially when they're about to go to prison for lying, something they claim they never do. The title itself is part of Holmes' pledge to invite Fielder completely into their lives, and yet despite the couple's attempts to be as naked (at one point literally) and open as possible with their handpicked documentary team, nothing ever really seems to have a complete answer. Every question feels like a sitcom moment where someone is trying to fish a beloved ring out of a storm drain using nothing but a string and a wad of gum. You think you've got it, you think something's about to be reeled in, and then the balance tips yet again.
This has a remarkable effect on the film both emotionally and psychologically, and it begins with the way Holmes' brand of indirect directness – eager doe eyes and all – clearly chafes at Fielder. For all his comedy bona fides he is genuinely trying to understand these people, not mock them or force them into situations where they basically mock themselves. He honestly wants to know if Holmes really feels she did nothing wrong, and if she didn't, how she explains everything else that's happening to her. He wants, in other words, to know what we all want to know, and yet for all her vows of complete transparency, for all the time she and Evans attempt to explain themselves to Fielder, she feels not just still unknowable but even more unknowable.
It's odd to see a film in which Nathan Fielder comes across as the most reasonable person in the picture, but the more he leans in, the more he steps out of the shadows and corners of rooms and into the center of the story, the more riveting You Can See Everything becomes. Yes, at times it feels like an alien is interviewing a different kind of alien about what it's like to pretend to be human, but Fielder ultimately emerges as the lone person with an arc in this story. He is searching for something beyond Evans' corporate speak and Holmes' efforts at friendly rapport. He wants to know, really know, what's going on in the heads of these people, and he is willing to go to wild lengths to find that knowledge. I'm dancing around what he actually does to get to this point, because I really want you to see it for yourself, but his commitment and determination keeps the film chugging along even when Holmes' prison sentence starts to necessarily fragment the narrative.
Fielder's machinations, even when they get weird (and they do get very weird) help to reinforce the film's larger thematic structure as a story about what truth really means in the context of personalities jockeying for position in a spotlight. If you promise complete honesty, but you leave some things out, did you lie by omission? Will someone give you the same answer on camera as they would in the dark? If you have to manipulate someone to get an honest answer out of them, have you really told the truth or have you orchestrated the truth you want? The answers do not come easy, if they come at all, but the search for those answers makes You Can See Everything a gripping, impossibly entertaining maze of a movie that's perfectly suited to the present moment. See it as soon as you can, because I have a feeling everyone will be talking about it.
You Can See Everything is in theaters October 16.
