Have you heard of comedian/satirist/provocateur Nathan Fielder?
He was a little bit on my radar because my kids showed me episodes of his show “Nathan for You” years ago, where he would offer absurd business advice to struggling small businesses — and they often took it, with sometimes hilarious results. He went on to do shows like "The Rehearsal" and others, but then COVID ended and the kids went back off to lead their lives and I never caught those.
I found him reasonably funny, but he’s incredibly socially awkward, which he used as an effective tool in his comedies. Making people uncomfortable can be great drama (and humor). What he most certainly is, however, is the last person you would ever invite into your house to make a documentary about you after you’d been convicted in a huge Silicon Valley fraud scheme.
And yet, that’s exactly what former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and her partner did 34 days before she was required to report to federal prison for a 10-year sentence.
The results were bizarre, unexpected, and completely unlike any theatrical release I’ve ever seen. The buzz around the film, helmed by Fielder and co-director Lance Oppenheim, continues to increase, as it actually grossed more in its second week, which is unusual, and it’s now on pace to possibly end up as the biggest non-musical documentary of all time.
The quick backstory: Holmes was convicted in 2022 on four counts of fraud and conspiracy for misleading investors about her blood-testing company's technology. She had led venture capitalists to believe that the firm had perfected the tech to run all sorts of diagnostic tests with just one tiny pinprick of blood from a patient’s finger. It would have changed the testing industry overnight.
The only problem? It wasn’t true.
The main thought that ran through my mind watching this film was, why on earth did this decidedly strange couple allow an even stranger filmmaker into their house to document their lives in such intimate detail? Did they think it would make them look good?
Spoiler alert: It didn’t.
The second central question was, is Holmes a sweet woman, a brilliant scientist who just overshot her skis but had no evil intentions? Or is she a psychotic mastermind capable of manipulating even the smartest people in her orbit? She comes across quite believably as both in various moments, but in the end, I’d have to conclude you can’t trust a single word that comes out of her mouth.
Her unblinking wide eyes and enigmatic smile — usually shot in eerie close-up by the directors — dominate the film:
1) reading her biography, elizabeth would look nathan up, she definitely knew nathan's bit before she agreed to the documentary, so she's down to play
— sanje horah 🇵🇸🇺🇦 — PNEUMATICS ONLY (@sanjehorah) September 7, 2026
2) she aint gonna let him live with her unless she likes him genuinely in some way
3) elizabeth holmes' whole thing is… https://t.co/7xTi6Kd1Cq pic.twitter.com/wxIxGujS9e
As we approach Halloween, that is the spookiest thing I’ve seen this year. Fielder’s facial reactions, meanwhile, are hilarious because you almost can see him thinking, "What the hell have I gotten myself into here, and who on God's green earth is this woman?!"
We've barely even yet mentioned Holmes’ longterm significant other, Billy Evans, who appears mild-mannered and supportive in the first half of the movie. There’s some dispute over who thought it was a good idea to show him naked in the shower for no apparent reason — was it him wanting to show off his physique, or did the filmmakers put him up to it?
The jarring scene is at least partly behind the title, “You Can See Everything,” because indeed, in that moment, you could. Holmes also texted Fielder those words as she was encouraging him to do the documentary, so that played into it as well.
Meanwhile, without giving too much away, Evans turned out to be quite the mental case himself. After Holmes goes off to prison, he is interviewed two years later saying that he doesn’t need to confer with her about future business deals because they have some sort of radar love or something and she knows exactly what he’s thinking. He openly admits hitting social media — in her name.
Who wrote this? Him or her? Your guess is as good as anyone’s:
I think about this often pic.twitter.com/LJEJ2LPYFU
— Elizabeth Holmes (@ElizabethHolmes) September 26, 2026
Things take an even wackier turn when actress Amanda Seyfried, who won an Emmy in 2022 for portraying Holmes in the 2022 Hulu biographical drama miniseries The Dropout, shows up. She has an uncanny resemblance to Holmes, and not only does she help Fielder recreate a prison visit with Holmes that was not allowed to be filmed live, but, in a riveting scene, she aggressively questions Evans about his questionable decisions.
They say that truth is stranger than fiction, and in that out-of-body moment, Seyfried went from playing his spouse on TV to acting like his bitter ex-wife in real life.
Incredibly, Evans has gone right back to work. Fortune Magazine's Sunday headline feels like déjà vu all over again:
Billy Evans’s ‘Theranos 2.0’ startup has patents, investors, and a missing CTO—but no product
I know, it can all sound a little too “out-there.” What I think makes it a standout, however, is that it all felt so real, even if there were cameras there. Seyfried was brilliant, and wasn’t afraid to question the filmmakers or their subjects. However strange some of the characters are, the film is a fascinating look into Silicon Valley geniuses/psychos and how they react when someone even more awkward than them enters the frame.
Listen, I’m pretty much a Neanderthal in my movie tastes — I like guns, explosions and babes, and don’t really have enough time in the day for period romances — but this one really fascinated me. I’ll take it any day over another “Iron Man and the Avengers Have Massive CGI Battle Against the Fantastic Four and the Green Lantern and An Evil Alien.”
One question remains: Did Fielder fall in love with the beguiling, mysterious and possibly evil Holmes during the shoot? You decide.
