You Can See Everything Review feedzy_import_tag

You Can See Everything is in theaters October 15.

At nearly three hours in length, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s You Can See Everything is a staggering, unnerving documentary about Silicon Valley and whether you can truly know someone. Its focus is Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who granted the filmmakers unprecedented access for about a month before her prison stint began in 2023. However, the movie is as much about the question of Holmes’ culpability as it is about cults of personality and cultural mythologies at large — not to mention Fielder’s own oeuvre and TV persona as the creator of shows like The Rehearsal, a prankish work of obsession laced with hidden sincerity.

The total here feels greater than the sum of its parts, owing to the allure of its eerie filmmaking and the sheer brain-breaking scope of its ambition as a work of haunting, self-reflexive cinema. Filled with suffocating 4:3 close-ups shot with long lenses, and awash in shadow to disguise motive, the movie’s rapturous form feels like the product of invasive surveillance amidst a mile-a-minute chase. This is despite the fact that most of it is composed of simple, static conversations — a magnificent sleight of hand.

It initially unfolds at a beachside home in San Diego rented by Holmes and her husband, the wild-eyed hotel heir Billy Evans, a man seen voraciously absorbing audio material at double speed. We’re reintroduced to Holmes’ story by way of news clips scoring footage of her daily life, a sort of “previously on” segment detailing her conviction for fraud. However, as an anchor utters the phrase “pathological liar,” the camera falls on Fielder for the first time as he appears like a poltergeist in the corner.

The hilarity of Fielder’s awkward, lumbering presence in this domestic setting — headphones at the ready around his neck like he’s playing the role of “a director” — clashes wildly with unsettling zooms into empty spaces and people’s expressions. As Holmes and Evans raise their two young children, Fielder probes the couple through intimate sit-downs on their couch, and conversations in passing wherever he can steal them.

With the saturation turned up to the edge of uncanniness — in concert with Oppenheim’s Chris Hansen drama from this year, Primetime — Holmes’ deep blue eyes become Fielder’s greatest challenge yet, as a man seemingly taken by her charm while also thoroughly unconvinced of her claims that she did nothing wrong. And yet, when it comes to her seemingly magical, test-for-any-disease device, he extends her an enormous benefit of doubt, if only to keep unspooling a tightly-wound thread, thus allowing Holmes and Evans to hoist themselves with their own petards.

As Fielder grows more entwined with the couple, it’s hard not to see the Nathan For You host as if he’s peering into a mirror of sorts. Holmes is a fellow manipulator, though perhaps she’s more adept at it than Fielder is. Fielder’s TV character is that of a slightly naïve and self-effacing man who secretly nudges his subjects in a particular direction through suggestion. But while his goal is entertainment, Holmes’ is securing financial investment, something she continues to work on even as her prison sentence looms.

The visual framing creates a proximity and palpable tension between Fielder and Holmes, but it crafts an equally compelling portrait of Evans as a man potentially pulling the strings. However, the question of whether Holmes is letting him do this or if she’s even aware of what he’s up to remains a central point of inquiry. It’s rare to watch a documentary that gradually becomes about its own making and finances, but these are among its most exhilarating developments; You Can See Everything really does want you to witness its every dimension.

You might find yourself asking why the film occupies such an enormous runtime, but the answer becomes self-evident once it moves into its second half. The question of who Holmes truly is — A deceiver in denial? Someone in the throes of delusion? — remains hauntingly open-ended. This not only imbues the film with a debilitating uncertainty about the kinds of tech moguls running our lives, but it also forces Fielder to turn to a very surprising ally for an alternative peek into Holmes’ mind.

Then again, perhaps this person’s identity is not so surprising if you’re familiar with cultural depictions of Holmes and Fielder’s usual M.O. But the film remains remarkably unpredictable by creating circumstances where people are forced to watch and reflect rather uncomfortably on transcripts and existing footage. Bit by bit, this aforementioned celebrity becomes a kind of co-conspirator in Fielder’s audit of the truth through inviting fireside chats that reveal the gradual frustrations of this particular journey.

As the questions about Holmes and Evans grow more labyrinthine, the movie becomes an astonishing mise en abyme (story within a story) by way of Rehearsal-like re-enactments. These are aimed not only at filling in the gaps caused by Holmes’ incarceration but at using cinematic tools to mine for all possible truths at once to see which one fits… if any at all. It’s exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from Fielder’s experiments, and yet it remains shocking at every turn. At some points, it becomes hard to believe the things you’re seeing and hearing were captured in the first place.

The possibility of the production itself falling apart through the sudden revocation of access always looms, and it certainly isn’t helped by the fact that Fielder is at his most confrontational as an on-screen personality. His provocations are in service of a deeply human search for not only who Holmes is but why she is — a mystery that only grows more confounding the more we learn about her, and the closer Fielder gets to her. It’s a sympathetic look at a person who, despite the harm she’s caused, seems hell-bent on staying the course and re-enacting the past… not unlike Fielder himself.

The result is wildly captivating, woven from creeping close-ups and stealthy investigations into the kind of minds making modern tech industries tick. It’s one of the most electric and enrapturing films you’re likely to see this year, and by the time it concludes, its gargantuan 174 minutes may not feel like enough.