In a world saturated with pre-packaged content, You Can See Everything doesn’t just chronicle Elizabeth Holmes’s final days of freedom before prison; it turns the camera directly back onto us. More than an investigation into a ruinous fall, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s documentary is an uncomfortable mirror: the true unease lies not in her fixed and impassive gaze, but in our voyeuristic obsession, completely unable to look away from the screen.
When someone like Elizabeth Holmes is under the lens, simple gossip turns into a true collective obsession. It is into this world of prying eyes that You Can See Everything brings us, a major documentary directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, and distributed by A24. The film has everyone talking at festivals and across the web, instantly becoming an unmissable cult film for movie lovers.
More than just a film, it is a powerful experience that goes straight to our unstoppable urge to discover what really happens behind closed doors, when nobody is watching.
The Hunger for the Unfiltered in a Prepredictable World
We live in a saturated, hyper-exposed reality where everything appears predictable, filtered, and incredibly obvious. In a context where every piece of information or image is pre-packaged to be digested in a few seconds, human beings experience a natural and inevitable urge to push back. This is precisely where the irresistible attraction to a work like You Can See Everything comes in: we desperately crave something unedited and authentic, and a film that sets out to portray a true, uncomfortable, and raw reality pulls us in magnetically. We want a perspective that doesn’t sugarcoat things, that unmasks the artifice, and that gives us back the thrill of the unpredictable.
What is the film about?
The documentary follows the lives of Elizabeth Holmes, the infamous founder of the biotech startup Theranos convicted of investor fraud, and her partner Billy Evans. The starting point is surreal yet real: in the 34 days leading up to Holmes’s entry into a federal penitentiary to serve her sentence, the couple decides to invite a film crew into their beachfront home in San Diego to document their daily lives. What begins as the chronicle of a disgraced figure’s descent into hell transforms, over a three-year monitoring period, into a disquieting psychological investigation. The film explores relationship dynamics, unfading delusions of omnipotence, and the razor-thin line between lying and self-deception.
The Core of the Film: That Disturbing, Unsettling Stare
One of the most central and heavily debated elements of the work is the way the camera captures Elizabeth Holmes. The documentary frequently lingers on tight close ups, exposing the viewer to that fixed, wide open stare, seemingly devoid of blinking, which has become her defining trait. The expression that emerges in the film has been described by many critics as deeply disturbing. It is a gaze that oscillates between glacial calm and palpable tension, a mask of impassivity that makes it impossible for the observer to decipher her true thoughts. This contrast with the gravity of her situation creates a constant sense of unease, forcing the audience to constantly wonder what is truly hiding behind that facade.
In the end, You Can See Everything is less about Elizabeth Holmes and much more about us. The film acts as a mirror, reminding us that the most terrifying monster in the room is not a fallen tech icon, but our own insatiable desire to watch every single second of her ruin. When the credits finally roll, the real question is not what she was thinking behind that fixed stare, but why we couldn’t take our eyes off the screen.
Giulia Calbi