Elizabeth Holmes spent years at the center of one of Silicon Valley’s most notorious corporate scandals. Now, a new documentary is putting audiences unusually close to the former Theranos founder during the final weeks before she went to prison.
You Can See Everything, directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, follows Holmes during the 34 days leading up to the start of her federal prison sentence in May 2023. Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans, gave the filmmakers extensive access to their home and family life during a period when Holmes had largely retreated from public view.
For Fielder, getting that close to Holmes created an unexpected challenge.
Although he entered the project familiar with the Theranos scandal and Holmes’ fraud conviction, spending time with her complicated his perception of the person behind the headlines. He found himself confronted with moments in which Holmes appeared remarkably sincere, even while he remained aware of the deception at the heart of the criminal case against her.
That tension ultimately became one of the forces driving the documentary.
Fielder and Oppenheim discovered that they could witness the same interaction with Holmes and walk away with strikingly different interpretations. Rather than resolving that disagreement, they became increasingly interested in it. Other members of the filmmaking team reportedly experienced similar uncertainty as production continued.
The filmmakers’ involvement with Holmes began after they learned that she and Evans had expressed interest in having their lives documented through A24. Fielder was already fascinated by the rise and collapse of Theranos, making the opportunity difficult to ignore.
What followed was an exceptionally intimate production. Cameras captured Holmes and Evans throughout their daily lives as the deadline for Holmes to surrender to federal custody approached.
Holmes had once been celebrated as one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent entrepreneurs after claiming Theranos could transform medical testing. The company’s spectacular collapse led to a federal criminal case, and Holmes was ultimately convicted on four fraud-related counts involving investors. She received a prison sentence of more than 11 years and has continued to maintain her innocence.
You Can See Everything brings Holmes back into public view in a dramatically different setting.
The nearly three-hour film made a surprise debut at the Telluride Film Festival before arriving at the New York Film Festival, where its unusual portrait of Holmes generated intense attention.
Fielder and Oppenheim are keeping many of the documentary’s biggest developments under wraps and have encouraged early audiences to do the same.
That leaves viewers with one particularly intriguing question when the film reaches theaters: after spending weeks watching Elizabeth Holmes up close, will they feel any more certain about when they are seeing the real person?
You Can See Everything opens in theaters October 16.
