***SPOILERS AHEAD***
I love that everything Nathan Fielder has ever done, whether reuniting a Bill Gates impersonator with a lost love or improving a caricature artist’s business or learning about pilots is ultimately just a deep examination of “Nathan Fielder’s” insecurities. Bravo. – Me
You Can See Everything came out of nowhere.
I didn’t even know the movie existed until a few weeks ago, when its haunting, funny, almost inexplicable teaser appeared online, with a shockingly short runway until release.
I think the truncated timeline worked strongly in the movie’s favor. The less time there was for details to leak, the better, and nearly every review advised would-be filmgoers to avoid any information prior to watching.
I managed to follow that advice to the letter, walking in completely cold. Probably freezing, in fact, since I was only vaguely aware of the Theranos story and had never watched The Dropout. All of this made for an even better filmgoing experience.
The word “unique” is (ironically enough) overused. So I do not say this lightly: Nathan Fielder is uniquely talented. No one is making this specific type of difficult, well-crafted comedy—comedy that periodically and perfectly places Fielder at the center of the content. This is highly unusual for a director, and Fielder here co-directs with Lance Oppenheim. For fans of his other work, You Can See Everything may actually be the most restrained version of Fielder we’ve seen, at least for the first two-thirds of the film.
He’s certainly a part of the story to a greater degree than other modern documentarians, but, compared to Nathan for You or The Rehearsal, Fielder is far less interventionist. Unlike those other projects, he’s not dealing with run-of-the-mill civilians or people who may be slightly weird but are generally sympathetic. In You Can See Everything, Fielder instead more frequently sits back and gives the subjects the proverbial rope with which to hang themselves.
As such, Fielder’s guiding narration is much less prominent than in his other projects. Again, this is both appropriate and smart. The film includes a potent score that drives the tension and emotion, filling the customary awkward silences and cueing the audience about the intended tone.
After Elizabeth Holmes begins her prison term, the subtle hints of the first part of the film become overt, and the story shifts toward an examination of the motivations of her romantic partner and the father of her children, Billy Evans. He is portrayed (probably fairly) as selfish and manipulative, but the revelation at the end, following Fielder’s final meeting with her, is that perhaps Holmes wasn’t an unwitting victim vis-à-vis Evans’ machinations.
Instead, we are left with the conclusion that she is either incredibly manipulative herself, or she is genuinely comfortable with Evans running her life and capitalizing on her notoriety in ways that seem incredibly unseemly and likely unethical when first presented to the audience. Yet, there is lingering doubt about all of it.
By contrast, there is little ambiguity about the fact that Evans is, at a minimum, a flawed individual. Fielder certainly casts Evans in an unfavorable light, although Evans does himself no favors. As an example, there is a rather intentional implication that Evans is a cocaine user, as, post-time-jump to 2025, his frequent sniffing makes the cut in nearly every scene. I’m sure they never state it explicitly to avoid a defamation lawsuit, but, nonetheless, there’s no question that the movie tries to show Evans’ worst attributes—including, for example, showing him listening to podcasts at 2x speed like a lunatic.
As a side-note, the biggest reaction in my packed theater was, by far, the gasp / groan when Billy Evans mentions he (*shudder*) liked Charlie Kirk.
To the audience in Alexandria, Virginia, that is a greater sin than posting profane tweets on Holmes’ behalf, making business decisions without discussing them with her, or lying about knowing the man who was using her likeness in a way that was contrary to her previously stated wishes. But I am surrounded by near-communists, so his mild affinity for Kirk being Evans’ worst offense is not that shocking.
But I digress. The point is that pushing the “Billy is the bad guy” idea becomes increasingly apparent from the egg-whisking scene until the last few minutes. It is paired with a parallel idea that Evans’ manipulation is part of a pattern of how Elizabeth Holmes is manipulated by men, dating back to at least her partnership with Theranos President Sunny Balwani, who was Holmes’ boyfriend when she was the Theranos CEO.
That similarity is made more explicit by the introduction of Haemanthus, a new blood-testing company with ambitions so similar to Theranos that Evans refers to the effort earlier in the film as the “2.0” version of Theranos.
Clearly, the thesis, at least for a good portion of the film, is that Elizabeth Holmes has a personality / mentality that allows herself to be controlled by male partners. Sunny may have been the real villain at Theranos, pawning off some of the blame to Holmes for things she didn’t actually understand, and Billy Evans is himself the 2.0 version, an evil manipulator.
Or is he? What becomes far less clear is how “evil” he actually is, given Holmes’ own (perhaps devious, perhaps not) nature.
The most interesting and telling moment in the whole film for me was the “Who’s on First?” scene. In it, Fielder shows the classic Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First?” routine to Holmes and Evans. Evans, at least, fully grasps the scene and understands the comedic premise. Holmes clearly does not. And I believe her.
Fielder uses this as a metaphor to try to explain to her how she may believe that she was being clear to the public in discussing her blood-testing product’s features, but that her words were also ambiguous at best. He further points out that her inability to grasp “Who’s on First?” reflects the Theranos-related confusion that plagues her as she prepares for incarceration.
Viewing this scene in hindsight, it becomes meaningful in a number of additional ways. Is this gap in the otherwise-intelligent Holmes’ understanding the crack that opportunistic male partners exploit to take advantage of her? Does Fielder see a kindred neurodivergent spirit in her that increases his affinity for Holmes? Either or both are possible in light of how the movie ends.
The storytelling structure also changes necessarily (and, again, smartly) once Holmes is in prison.
As Fielder’s work has evolved over the years, its big reveals—often shocking, often hilarious, often both—have become a consistent part of his storytelling. Here, the reveal of Amanda Seyfried’s involvement in the movie is the turning point.
The final hour-plus of the movie flips the Rehearsal formula on its head. The Reversal, I guess.
With Holmes not available, Seyfried diligently and gamely serves as her stand-in, recreating moments that occurred before filming began and after Holmes was in prison. But she also exists in the film as herself, both analyzing her past portrayal as Holmes and reacting to Evans’ behavior and motives and assisting Fielder in realizing his vision. Without Seyfried, You Can See Everything is still probably a good documentary, but it’s a much shorter and far less rich experience.
Fielder is the creative genius behind the execution of this project, but Amanda Seyfried is the star.
The movie’s biggest spoiler is just how involved Seyfried becomes during the second half—a pleasant surprise that enhances the film greatly. So much so, in fact, that (assuming she would be eligible in a film like this), I fully expect she’ll be nominated for Best Supporting Actress. I can honestly say I’ve never seen a performance like this, because I can’t think of a movie that is structured quite the same way this one is.
There is also an inherent irony created by this choice. Fielder shows many examples of how Evans uses Elizabeth Holmes’ likeness in self-serving or even creepy ways, up to and including having her face and body scanned before she goes to prison so as to be able to create avatars and AI versions of her while she’s away. This is initially so that she would be able to appear virtually for her children, but Evans finds ways to exploit this for potential financial gain.
While Fielder highlights these examples, again (correctly) framing them as evidence of Evans’ narcissistic or controlling or money-grubbing character, Fielder himself is doing something similar.
With Holmes unavailable, he seeks out her most famous “avatar” in Seyfried, even acting out scenes with her that allow him to relive—and even slightly tweak—conversations after the fact, again in a reversal of The Rehearsal.
Because of Fielder’s aforementioned genius, I’m quite confident this is all intentional.
I referred at the top to the fact that Fielder’s work is almost always a window into Fielder himself. Or, more properly, a window into the character of “Nathan Fielder.” That holds true, here, as it’s heavily implied (and suggested explicitly by Seyfried) that Fielder may have tilted the scales in favor of a sympathetic rendering of Holmes because of his own feelings for her.
This is a recurring theme in Fielder’s work now, in which whatever subject he’s tackling is eventually exposed as a delivery system for him to work through his own foibles, especially loneliness and lack of social success (possibly fueled by his kayfabe neurodivergence).
In You Can See Everything, there’s a long scene early on in which Fielder asks about the origin of her relationship with Evans. Evans explains that what turned his initial meeting with Holmes into love was lengthy, intense eye contact on his part.
Although it’s never addressed explicitly, the scenes that follow feature Fielder staring intently into Holmes’ eyes for unnaturally long stretches, sometimes at close distance. The implication is hard to miss. Much later in the film, while going over the script for her final recreation, Seyfried detects that Fielder may be shifting things to the presentation most favorable for Holmes.
The movie closes with a callback to something that happened two years earlier, where Holmes playfully invited Fielder to go for a swim with her. The placement of this footage is naturally intended to imply that Seyfried was correct, that Fielder was taken in by a combination of Holmes’ manipulation and his own loneliness, and that the Billy – Elizabeth dynamic may not be as clear-cut and one-sided as it had appeared during the previous hour of the film.
This leaves the viewer with much to contemplate about the various motivations of everyone involved, including Fielder (or, at least, “Fielder”) himself.
Personally, I don’t pity Elizabeth Holmes, at least not for being convicted of fraud. I think she properly went to prison. I do feel sorry for her parents and, especially, her children. I also don’t pity Billy Evans, but that goes without saying.
A post-script to the film reveals that Evans decided to forgo the profit-sharing that he had previously negotiated, which had been a major plot point earlier in the film. Fielder uses that story both to highlight what a bad person Evans is and, later, to raise questions about whether Holmes was the naive pawn that Fielder at least temporarily made her out to be.
You Can See Everything is an excellent, compelling documentary that will delight fans of Fielder but may be slightly perplexing for traditional doc fans who aren’t familiar with Fielder’s work and style. On the other hand, Fielder aficionados will be much more prepared for the shifts and surprises along the way, although they’re still quite compelling and excellently done—just less shocking for us Fielderheads.
As someone who absolutely loves Fielder’s art, I found this film to be very good, with Seyfried perhaps the biggest (and definitely most unexpected) highlight. Having said that, I still think the last season of The Rehearsal is the best thing I’ve ever seen him do, and one of the best things I’ve ever seen on television.
It is simply impossible to top. Equaled, maybe. But I still have trouble even comprehending the reveal that Fielder secretly became a commercial airline pilot.
That’s commitment. And no one commits harder than Nathan Fielder.
Go see You Can See Everything. It’s well worth your three hours.
Timely Movie Review: You Can See Everything
I love that everything Nathan Fielder has ever done, whether reuniting a Bill Gates impersonator with a lost love or improving a caricature artist’s business or learning about pilots is ultimately just a deep examination of “Nathan Fielder’s” insecurities. Bravo. – Me
You Can See Everything came out of nowhere.
I didn’t even know the movie existed until a few weeks ago, when its haunting, funny, almost inexplicable teaser appeared online, with a shockingly short runway until release.
I think the truncated timeline worked strongly in the movie’s favor. The less time there was for details to leak, the better, and nearly every review advised would-be filmgoers to avoid any information prior to watching.
I managed to follow that advice to the letter, walking in completely cold. Probably freezing, in fact, since I was only vaguely aware of the Theranos story and had never watched The Dropout. All of this made for an even better filmgoing experience.
The word “unique” is (ironically enough) overused. So I do not say this lightly: Nathan Fielder is uniquely talented. No one is making this specific type of difficult, well-crafted comedy—comedy that periodically and perfectly places Fielder at the center of the content. This is highly unusual for a director, and Fielder here co-directs with Lance Oppenheim. For fans of his other work, You Can See Everything may actually be the most restrained version of Fielder we’ve seen, at least for the first two-thirds of the film.
He’s certainly a part of the story to a greater degree than other modern documentarians, but, compared to Nathan for You or The Rehearsal, Fielder is far less interventionist. Unlike those other projects, he’s not dealing with run-of-the-mill civilians or people who may be slightly weird but are generally sympathetic. In You Can See Everything, Fielder instead more frequently sits back and gives the subjects the proverbial rope with which to hang themselves.
As such, Fielder’s guiding narration is much less prominent than in his other projects. Again, this is both appropriate and smart. The film includes a potent score that drives the tension and emotion, filling the customary awkward silences and cueing the audience about the intended tone.
After Elizabeth Holmes begins her prison term, the subtle hints of the first part of the film become overt, and the story shifts toward an examination of the motivations of her romantic partner and the father of her children, Billy Evans. He is portrayed (probably fairly) as selfish and manipulative, but the revelation at the end, following Fielder’s final meeting with her, is that perhaps Holmes wasn’t an unwitting victim vis-à-vis Evans’ machinations.
Instead, we are left with the conclusion that she is either incredibly manipulative herself, or she is genuinely comfortable with Evans running her life and capitalizing on her notoriety in ways that seem incredibly unseemly and likely unethical when first presented to the audience. Yet, there is lingering doubt about all of it.
By contrast, there is little ambiguity about the fact that Evans is, at a minimum, a flawed individual. Fielder certainly casts Evans in an unfavorable light, although Evans does himself no favors. As an example, there is a rather intentional implication that Evans is a cocaine user, as, post-time-jump to 2025, his frequent sniffing makes the cut in nearly every scene. I’m sure they never state it explicitly to avoid a defamation lawsuit, but, nonetheless, there’s no question that the movie tries to show Evans’ worst attributes—including, for example, showing him listening to podcasts at 2x speed like a lunatic.
As a side-note, the biggest reaction in my packed theater was, by far, the gasp / groan when Billy Evans mentions he (*shudder*) liked Charlie Kirk.
To the audience in Alexandria, Virginia, that is a greater sin than posting profane tweets on Holmes’ behalf, making business decisions without discussing them with her, or lying about knowing the man who was using her likeness in a way that was contrary to her previously stated wishes. But I am surrounded by near-communists, so his mild affinity for Kirk being Evans’ worst offense is not that shocking.
But I digress. The point is that pushing the “Billy is the bad guy” idea becomes increasingly apparent from the egg-whisking scene until the last few minutes. It is paired with a parallel idea that Evans’ manipulation is part of a pattern of how Elizabeth Holmes is manipulated by men, dating back to at least her partnership with Theranos President Sunny Balwani, who was Holmes’ boyfriend when she was the Theranos CEO.
That similarity is made more explicit by the introduction of Haemanthus, a new blood-testing company with ambitions so similar to Theranos that Evans refers to the effort earlier in the film as the “2.0” version of Theranos.
Clearly, the thesis, at least for a good portion of the film, is that Elizabeth Holmes has a personality / mentality that allows herself to be controlled by male partners. Sunny may have been the real villain at Theranos, pawning off some of the blame to Holmes for things she didn’t actually understand, and Billy Evans is himself the 2.0 version, an evil manipulator.
Or is he? What becomes far less clear is how “evil” he actually is, given Holmes’ own (perhaps devious, perhaps not) nature.
The most interesting and telling moment in the whole film for me was the “Who’s on First?” scene. In it, Fielder shows the classic Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First?” routine to Holmes and Evans. Evans, at least, fully grasps the scene and understands the comedic premise. Holmes clearly does not. And I believe her.
Fielder uses this as a metaphor to try to explain to her how she may believe that she was being clear to the public in discussing her blood-testing product’s features, but that her words were also ambiguous at best. He further points out that her inability to grasp “Who’s on First?” reflects the Theranos-related confusion that plagues her as she prepares for incarceration.
Viewing this scene in hindsight, it becomes meaningful in a number of additional ways. Is this gap in the otherwise-intelligent Holmes’ understanding the crack that opportunistic male partners exploit to take advantage of her? Does Fielder see a kindred neurodivergent spirit in her that increases his affinity for Holmes? Either or both are possible in light of how the movie ends.
The storytelling structure also changes necessarily (and, again, smartly) once Holmes is in prison.
As Fielder’s work has evolved over the years, its big reveals—often shocking, often hilarious, often both—have become a consistent part of his storytelling. Here, the reveal of Amanda Seyfried’s involvement in the movie is the turning point.
The final hour-plus of the movie flips the Rehearsal formula on its head. The Reversal, I guess.
With Holmes not available, Seyfried diligently and gamely serves as her stand-in, recreating moments that occurred before filming began and after Holmes was in prison. But she also exists in the film as herself, both analyzing her past portrayal as Holmes and reacting to Evans’ behavior and motives and assisting Fielder in realizing his vision. Without Seyfried, You Can See Everything is still probably a good documentary, but it’s a much shorter and far less rich experience.
Fielder is the creative genius behind the execution of this project, but Amanda Seyfried is the star.
The movie’s biggest spoiler is just how involved Seyfried becomes during the second half—a pleasant surprise that enhances the film greatly. So much so, in fact, that (assuming she would be eligible in a film like this), I fully expect she’ll be nominated for Best Supporting Actress. I can honestly say I’ve never seen a performance like this, because I can’t think of a movie that is structured quite the same way this one is.
There is also an inherent irony created by this choice. Fielder shows many examples of how Evans uses Elizabeth Holmes’ likeness in self-serving or even creepy ways, up to and including having her face and body scanned before she goes to prison so as to be able to create avatars and AI versions of her while she’s away. This is initially so that she would be able to appear virtually for her children, but Evans finds ways to exploit this for potential financial gain.
While Fielder highlights these examples, again (correctly) framing them as evidence of Evans’ narcissistic or controlling or money-grubbing character, Fielder himself is doing something similar.
With Holmes unavailable, he seeks out her most famous “avatar” in Seyfried, even acting out scenes with her that allow him to relive—and even slightly tweak—conversations after the fact, again in a reversal of The Rehearsal.
Because of Fielder’s aforementioned genius, I’m quite confident this is all intentional.
I referred at the top to the fact that Fielder’s work is almost always a window into Fielder himself. Or, more properly, a window into the character of “Nathan Fielder.” That holds true, here, as it’s heavily implied (and suggested explicitly by Seyfried) that Fielder may have tilted the scales in favor of a sympathetic rendering of Holmes because of his own feelings for her.
This is a recurring theme in Fielder’s work now, in which whatever subject he’s tackling is eventually exposed as a delivery system for him to work through his own foibles, especially loneliness and lack of social success (possibly fueled by his kayfabe neurodivergence).
In You Can See Everything, there’s a long scene early on in which Fielder asks about the origin of her relationship with Evans. Evans explains that what turned his initial meeting with Holmes into love was lengthy, intense eye contact on his part.
Although it’s never addressed explicitly, the scenes that follow feature Fielder staring intently into Holmes’ eyes for unnaturally long stretches, sometimes at close distance. The implication is hard to miss. Much later in the film, while going over the script for her final recreation, Seyfried detects that Fielder may be shifting things to the presentation most favorable for Holmes.
The movie closes with a callback to something that happened two years earlier, where Holmes playfully invited Fielder to go for a swim with her. The placement of this footage is naturally intended to imply that Seyfried was correct, that Fielder was taken in by a combination of Holmes’ manipulation and his own loneliness, and that the Billy – Elizabeth dynamic may not be as clear-cut and one-sided as it had appeared during the previous hour of the film.
This leaves the viewer with much to contemplate about the various motivations of everyone involved, including Fielder (or, at least, “Fielder”) himself.
Personally, I don’t pity Elizabeth Holmes, at least not for being convicted of fraud. I think she properly went to prison. I do feel sorry for her parents and, especially, her children. I also don’t pity Billy Evans, but that goes without saying.
A post-script to the film reveals that Evans decided to forgo the profit-sharing that he had previously negotiated, which had been a major plot point earlier in the film. Fielder uses that story both to highlight what a bad person Evans is and, later, to raise questions about whether Holmes was the naive pawn that Fielder at least temporarily made her out to be.
You Can See Everything is an excellent, compelling documentary that will delight fans of Fielder but may be slightly perplexing for traditional doc fans who aren’t familiar with Fielder’s work and style. On the other hand, Fielder aficionados will be much more prepared for the shifts and surprises along the way, although they’re still quite compelling and excellently done—just less shocking for us Fielderheads.
As someone who absolutely loves Fielder’s art, I found this film to be very good, with Seyfried perhaps the biggest (and definitely most unexpected) highlight. Having said that, I still think the last season of The Rehearsal is the best thing I’ve ever seen him do, and one of the best things I’ve ever seen on television.
It is simply impossible to top. Equaled, maybe. But I still have trouble even comprehending the reveal that Fielder secretly became a commercial airline pilot.
That’s commitment. And no one commits harder than Nathan Fielder.
Go see You Can See Everything. It’s well worth your three hours.
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