You Can See Everything: A Review

My wife and I saw You Can See Everything on Sunday, and I’m fairly sure it was the first documentary I’ve ever seen in a theater. That alone made it memorable. A documentary on a big screen, with an audience reacting around you, feels very different from watching one at home, and I hope we see more of them get this kind of release.

The film comes from Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder. Oppenheim has already shown a real cinematic eye with Some Kind of Heaven, and from the trailers alone, his upcoming feature Primetime looks like more of the same. I’ve been a Fielder fan since well before most people knew his name, from Nathan For You through The Rehearsal, which is still one of my favorite TV experiences ever. It’s nearly impossible to describe, and honestly, so is this.

The subject is Elizabeth Holmes. Most people already have an idea of who she is from the Theranos story, and that preconception becomes part of what the film is about. It’s tricky to review without spoilers, but I’ll say this: you could read a full transcript and it would still be worth seeing. I left the theater wondering what I’d just watched. Not in a confused way. In a raw way.

For roughly the first half, you wonder why Fielder is even there, and the film leans into that. There’s an early shot of Holmes inside the house while he stands outside the window, looking in, and it feels very deliberate. Even in his conversations with her, he seems to be asking the same question. That outsider lens is what makes the story so fascinating. (It’s also wild to think he was learning to fly commercial airliners for The Rehearsal Season 2 around the same time.)

As it goes on, though, it shifts. I joked to my wife that it felt like Season 3 of The Rehearsal, and if you’ve seen either season, you’ll know what I mean. It gets almost eerie in how it explores character, and how well we actually know people we only see through the news, reporting, or social media.

Fielder is sometimes called “the anti-narcissist” online, which is ironic, since his shows often involve socially maneuvering people, just openly, comedically, or in ways that are downright strange. There’s usually a point underneath that takes a while to land. Having him as the voice of this film, the one connecting with Holmes and her family, turns it into something other than an exposé. It quietly becomes a commentary on inventors, so-called geniuses, and people who might simply think differently.

Is she a villain? Is she lying? Did she knowingly deceive people, or does she just not process the world the way most of us do? The film doesn’t hand you an answer, and I suspect that’s because the filmmakers couldn’t find one. It also looks at how Fielder’s own closeness to her and her family shapes the way the story gets told.

Holmes repeatedly says she isn’t in it for the money, and Fielder seems to partly believe her, which somehow makes it more unsettling. If it wasn’t about money, then what was it about? That question pulled me past her case and into bigger ones: how we judge people by appearance and headlines, and how much we as individuals and as a culture are shaped by the innovators, creators, and celebrities who hold so much influence. It’s made me want to dig into the sociology of all that.

None of that is a knock on reporting or public scrutiny. The film simply opens the door to the idea that you don’t know everything. That’s the irony of the title. You Can See Everything was meant to promise total transparency, but the film never quite gets there, and not only because of her. The people and circumstances around her play a part too. It left me asking whether you can ever really see everything, even when someone tells you that you can.

Final rating: 8.5/10. If you get the chance, see it in theaters while it’s still playing. If I can find the time, I’m going back.