The release of the A24 (meta-) documentary You Can See Everything has ignited a firestorm of internet debate, and it is easy to see why. The film, which turns its lens on Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of the now-defunct health technology giant Theranos, is a profoundly unusual and thought-provoking exercise in modern nonfiction. Featuring Holmes alongside her partner, Billy Evans, the documentary presents its subjects with a polished, uncanny screen presence that feels less like a traditional interview and more like a high-stakes performance by seasoned actors.
Because of the intense, pre-existing public scrutiny surrounding Holmes, the film was destined to be met with intense criticism. A primary objection leveled by viewers and critics alike is that the documentary is fundamentally inaccurate. It is not difficult to understand why such an accusation would arise. The film is rife with scenes that defy the conventional standards of investigative journalism.
In one particularly surreal sequence, Holmes and one of the film’s directors, Nathan Fielder, engage in a pedantic, circular debate regarding the definition of the word "can" in the context of the infamous Theranos claim: "can run every test." Holmes insists, with her characteristic composure, that the device she is demonstrating to Fielder truly "can" run every test. Fielder, adopting a posture of confusion, probes whether Holmes is utilizing the word in its standard, functional sense.
The distinction here is philosophically significant. In a loose, technical sense, one "can" defeat the world chess champion simply by moving the pieces across the board, even if a victory is statistically or practically impossible. If someone makes that claim, however, the listener understands it as a false assertion of capability. Fielder’s questioning implies that Holmes may be operating in a similar semantic gray area—claiming capability in a way that is technically "not impossible" but fundamentally deceptive to investors and patients. This exchange highlights the chasm between Holmes’s internal logic and the reality that led to her legal downfall.
Another sequence involves Holmes watching the classic Abbott and Costello "Who’s on First?" comedy sketch. Her reaction—or lack thereof—is deeply unsettling. She appears either genuinely unable to grasp the linguistic playfulness of the routine, which relies on the audience understanding that "Who," "What," and "I Don’t Know" are names of baseball players, or she is actively pretending not to understand it.
These moments are designed to leave the viewer with a lingering, uncomfortable impression: that perhaps Holmes does not process or use language in the way the average person does. It invites a narrative that suggests she is not a calculated fraudster, but rather a deeply idiosyncratic individual with a unique, perhaps even deficient, grasp on social communication.
If that were the documentary’s intended takeaway, the criticism of its inaccuracy would be entirely justified. Holmes is currently serving a prison sentence not because of a failure of communication or a misunderstanding of wordplay, but because of systemic, criminal deception. She knowingly falsified financial records, subjected patients to diluted blood samples, and masqueraded third-party lab results as the output of her own proprietary technology. To reduce her actions to "poor communication skills" would be a historical and moral error.
The Question of Misleading Narratives
However, characterizing the film as "misleading" assumes that the film is making a standard, objective assertion—that it is attempting to convey a singular, factual truth. This is where You Can See Everything diverges from the conventional documentary format.
A traditional documentary typically operates as a series of claims, inviting the audience to accept a specific version of events as true. If those claims are found to be false, the documentary is, by definition, inaccurate. You Can See Everything does not seem to share this ambition. From the very opening, Fielder establishes a tone of self-aware inadequacy, noting that he is not "good at science things" and questioning aloud why he was selected for the project over a more qualified interviewer. This functions as an early, deliberate disclaimer: "Viewer, beware."
Furthermore, Fielder and his co-director, Josh Oppenheim, intentionally avoid the hallmarks of rigorous investigative reporting. They do not consult with industry experts, scientists, or the journalists who spent years uncovering the Theranos fraud. This omission feels calculated. By eschewing the traditional toolkit of the "truth-seeking" documentary, the filmmakers signal that they are not interested in re-litigating the details of "what really happened."
One might argue that Fielder’s focus on the word "can" is a tactic designed to manufacture ambiguity for the sake of entertainment, but that interpretation feels incomplete. A more compelling reading is that Fielder is attempting to map the contours of Holmes’s reality by operating within her own premise. If we assume she truly believes in her own distorted definitions, the documentary asks: shouldn’t she have anticipated how those definitions would mislead others?
The Abbott and Costello sketch serves as a similar trap. While Holmes is seen laughing, suggesting she understands the humor, her subsequent denial of that understanding presents a mystery. The film does not validate her denial; it simply presents it. We are left to wonder if we are witnessing a genuine cognitive disconnect or a calculated attempt by Holmes to pull a veil over the eyes of her interlocutors, even as she falls for Fielder’s subtle provocations.
Ultimately, the approach taken by Fielder and Oppenheim is a refreshing departure from the standard true-crime narrative. The world has already been saturated with factual accounts of the Theranos case; it does not necessarily need another procedural retelling. Instead, You Can See Everything attempts to do something far more difficult: it tries to penetrate the facade of Elizabeth Holmes.
Despite having unprecedented access for an extended period, the filmmakers never truly reach the center of the subject. The film feels as though the crew is knocking on the front door of a house they are already inside, constantly searching for a room they cannot access. The immaterial partition separating the public image of Elizabeth Holmes from the internal reality of her thoughts remains firmly in place. That failure to break through is, in itself, one of the film’s most significant themes.
The Game of Mutual Manipulation
In a widely circulated trailer, Holmes tells Fielder, "I am engaging with you as a human being" and "I am always being real." The irony, of course, is that the filmmakers are the ones attempting to reach her on a human level, only to have their own intentions reflected back at them. The directors’ primary goal was clearly to craft a compelling, unconventional feature, and in that regard, they have succeeded.
However, because the inner workings of Holmes’s mind remain a locked box, one could argue they only succeeded on her terms. In this high-stakes game of interpersonal manipulation, the filmmakers and their subject appear to have reached a stalemate.
You Can See Everything is a rare, unconventional work that manages to avoid being parasitic on the tropes of the genre. It does not attempt to "subvert" expectations by leading the audience in one direction only to pull the rug out from under them; instead, it is genuinely exploratory. It makes no promises about delivering "the truth," yet it feels like an honest attempt to engage with the absurdity of its subject.
What it delivers is a sense of displacement—a realization that the more we look at the facts of the Theranos case, the less we seem to know about the woman at the center of it. The film’s charm, and its central challenge to the viewer, lies in its refusal to offer a tidy conclusion. It is not an accurate documentary, but it is also not an inaccurate one. It is something else entirely: a meditation on the limits of our ability to ever truly see someone else, particularly someone who has spent a lifetime constructing a reality that only she can inhabit.
