You Can See Everything: Do Not Read This Review

By Liz Braun

Rating: A

The less you know going in about Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s documentary You Can See Everything, the better. The film is a masterpiece of cinematic misdirection and emotional sleight of hand. You should probably stop reading right now. 

You Can See Everything is ostensibly a documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the health technology company, Theranos — the company that claimed it would revamp the blood testing industry with new technology that made everything, quick, cheap and efficient. 

The claim was that Theranos needed only a few drops of blood to produce the same results that currently require a lab visit and venipuncture. Investors stepped up to the tune of about a billion dollars and Holmes became rich and famous.

It all seemed too good to be true. And it was. Elizabeth Holmes was in a lot of trouble - that special kind of trouble America reserves for financial crimes.

About a month before Holmes was to start her 11-year prison term for corporate fraud, she and her partner Billy Evans agreed to have a film crew document their daily, domestic lives. Eventually, the filmmakers are embedded in the Holmes/Evans household on the beach in San Diego. 

What happens next is a nifty exploration of perception, public persona, media and manipulation. The movie starts out as one thing and then morphs into something else. It’s a meta … morphosis.

You don’t need to know much about Nathan Fielder or his work on TV’s Nathan for You or The Rehearsal, you don’t even need to know much about TV in general, the films of Lance Oppenheimer, the career trajectory of Elizabeth Holmes or anything else in contemporary culture.

To appreciate You Can See Everything you just need to be able to leave expectations or preconceived notions at the door of the theatre. Great story. Terrific performances. Machiavellian intent, probably.

At this point, even the 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes seems like part of the bit. 

You Can See Everything. Written and directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. Stars Elizabeth Holmes, Nathan Fielder, Billy Evans. In theatres October 16.