You Can See Everything: Does It Live Up to the Hype?

You Can See Everything turns Elizabeth Holmes into a documentary mystery

The New York premiere of You Can See Everything at Alice Tully Hall on Sept. 30 drew an eager crowd after A24 unexpectedly revealed the film with a teaser on Sept. 6. The teaser showed Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in an intimate conversation with comedian Nathan Fielder, prompting widespread speculation about the documentary’s contents.

The project initially appeared almost impossible to believe. Its secret world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, timed to the teaser’s release, confirmed that the film was real while generating intense interest and far-reaching rumors. Co-directed by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, known for Primetime, the documentary asks what remains to be examined after Holmes has already been the subject of the book Bad Blood, Alex Gibney’s documentary The Inventor, the podcast series The Dropout, and Hulu’s dramatic adaptation starring Amanda Seyfried.

The answer, according to the review, is a great deal. You Can See Everything investigates not only Holmes and the Theranos scandal but also the nature of documentary filmmaking itself. The film combines outrageous statements, uncomfortable humor, startling twists, and full-frontal nudity with a more cerebral exploration of how audiences decide whether a person is telling the truth.

Nathan Fielder’s unusual access to Elizabeth Holmes

Fielder’s presence is one of the film’s central questions. Known for blurring reality and performance in shows including Nathan For You and The Rehearsal, he asks Holmes why she agreed to work with him. Holmes responds warmly but elusively, repeatedly insisting that she is transparent and truthful. Yet the film makes her difficult to trust, leaving viewers to assess whether her statements are sincere.

The circumstances of production make that uncertainty even more pronounced. Filming began during the 36 days before Holmes surrendered to authorities to start her prison sentence for fraud. During that period, Holmes allowed Fielder and a seven-person crew into her home, where she lived with her children and her fiancé, Billy Evans. She also invited Fielder to move into the couple’s cramped beach house in the Del Mar neighborhood of San Diego, and he accepted.

That level of proximity raises questions about whether Fielder became too close to the person he was supposed to investigate. The documentary deliberately makes that concern part of its subject. As Fielder moves closer to Holmes and her family, he risks occupying the same position as people Holmes previously impressed or influenced.

A claustrophobic visual style puts viewers inside the investigation

The film initially presents Holmes and Evans—whom they call “Liz and Billy”—through camera angles and conversations that create the impression of an unseen observer inside the home. Fielder gradually appears at the edges of the frame, watching from a corner or outside the house. He functions as the audience’s surrogate: curious, cautious, and attempting to understand an infamous figure from close range.

Fielder and Oppenheim reinforce that perspective through a suffocatingly intimate visual design. Shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio resembling a 1990s television screen, the documentary confines attention to a narrow image and emphasizes claustrophobic close-ups of Fielder, Holmes, Evans, and others. Multiple cameras capture both speakers and the people listening to them, allowing viewers to study every microexpression, flinch, and twitch.

The result forces the audience, like Fielder, to look directly at Holmes and decide what constitutes truth and what may be deception. The film offers no easy resolution. Its observational style intensifies the tension while making Fielder’s own judgment increasingly vulnerable to scrutiny.

Reenactments challenge memory and objectivity

One of the documentary’s major turns comes when Holmes goes to prison around the midpoint of the nearly three-hour film. Her incarceration sharply limits Fielder and Oppenheim’s access, so they use reenactments to continue the narrative. Reenactment is a familiar documentary technique, but the filmmakers use it to question how confidently any reconstruction can represent the past.

As in The Rehearsal, Fielder brings in an actor to recreate moments that were not captured on camera and speaks with the actor to examine what happened. Because those original interactions were never recorded, however, the reenactments depend on Fielder’s memory. Even while reading from his scripts, he questions whether he remembers events accurately. The film repeatedly challenges his perspective, including through an actor who accuses him of liking Holmes too much to remain objective.

That tension expands the film beyond Holmes herself. As Holmes says, documentaries are “human stories.” The choice of what enters the frame, what is left out, and which moments survive the edit inevitably shapes the meaning an audience receives. You Can See Everything therefore questions not only Holmes and Fielder but also the broader assumptions surrounding documentary and news-media objectivity.

Why This Matters

You Can See Everything uses the Elizabeth Holmes story to examine how truth is constructed through access, memory, framing, and editing. Its unusual production circumstances place Fielder inside the world of his subject, while the later reenactments expose the limits of his recollection and interpretation. The film’s broader significance lies in its argument that documentary filmmaking cannot be entirely detached from the people making it or the choices they impose on the material.

The documentary was reviewed at the New York Film Festival and is scheduled to open in theaters on Oct. 16.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who directed You Can See Everything?

The documentary was co-directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim.

What is You Can See Everything about?

It examines Elizabeth Holmes, her life and perspective around the start of her prison sentence for fraud, and the challenges of representing her story through documentary filmmaking.

When will You Can See Everything be released in theaters?

The film is scheduled to open in theaters on Oct. 16.