A surprise screening of Nathan Fielder’s documentary on Elizabeth Holmes has shocked and impressed critics.
Fielder and filmmaker Lance Oppenheim teamed up for You Can See Everything, an A24 docudrama about the disgraced Theranos founder, who was once celebrated as a Silicon Valley visionary before her empire collapsed. Holmes is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence.
The A24 docudrama was shown at a surprise screening Sunday at the Telluride Film Festival, where it sparked both questions and awe.
“What the f--- did I just watch?” wrote film critic Matt Neglia on X. “One of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen,” he said, adding that the documentary was a “mesmerizing psychological excavation of truth, performance, and self-deception that will have you questioning every glance, gesture, and word...”
Critic Mark Johnson wrote, “With You Can See Everything, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim have delivered one of the most transfixing and jaw-dropping documentaries of ALL TIME. I implore you to know as little as possible about this film before seeing it.”
“Nathan Fielder’s surprise Elizabeth Holmes documentary ‘You Can See Everything’ truly had to be seen to be believed,” wrote AwardsRadar’s Joey Magidson. “It starts as one thing before evolving into something that literally took my breath away. My lips are sealed, but you’re not prepared.
Reviewer Vince Nunnelly said the film is “Truly one of the most bizarre yet compelling docs, EVER. It felt like a fever dream.”
Next Best Picture writer Daniel Howat said the film “is maybe the most hysterical, shocking, insane documentary I’ve ever seen.”
Others have said they “can’t stop thinking about it” and that it’s “like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
Several critics implored viewers to read as little about the film as possible, underscoring its shock factor.
The filmmakers chronicled Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans, in the 34 days before she was sent to prison for fraud in the spring of 2023. According to A24’s logline, Holmes “invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move. What begins as an intimate portrait of an enigmatic felon becomes a mind-bending three-year journey into the abyss.”
Oppenheim, 30, has directed several short documentaries and has made his feature film debut with the Robert Pattinson-starrer Primetime. Fielder, 43, is a comedian known for his Comedy Central parody reality show Nathan for You. He later created HBO’s The Rehearsal, a comedy docu-series.
At the film festival, Fielder reportedly told his audience, “I’m struggling to this day to understand exactly what I experienced.”
The nearly three-hour-long documentary took the duo three years to complete.
A24 released a teaser for the Holmes documentary following the Telluride screening. In the clip, set to foreboding music and the sound of waves, Fielder is looking shell-shocked, staring into Holmes’s eyes as she says, “I don’t have anything to deceive you on. Of course, I’m not deceiving you. I’m engaging with you as a human being.”
“OK,” Fielder responds, looking unconvinced. “Alright. OK, good chat. You’re being real right now?”
“I’m always being real,” she replies.
Holmes’s story is not untold. She was covered extensively in The Drop Out podcast, Hulu’s series starring Amanda Seyfried, and best-selling books.
According to Vanity Fair, however, Fielder and Oppenheimer’s documentary is still “worth the wait.”
