Does You Can See Everything really live up to the hype?
Yes. For anyone asking does you can see Everything live up to the buzz, Mashable's review says it does: Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes make a mesmerizing, mind-bending match in this A24 documentary. Co-directed with Lance Oppenheim, it is a masterwork of interrogation—of Holmes and of documentary itself—not a simple crowdpleaser, but a real stunner.
Key Takeaways
- A24's You Can See Everything premiered at Telluride and screened at the New York Film Festival after a Sept. 6 teaser went viral.
- Nathan Fielder moved into Elizabeth Holmes' Del Mar beach house during the 36 days before she began her fraud prison sentence.
- The nearly three-hour film uses intimate 4:3 cinematography, then shifts into Rehearsal-style reenactments after Holmes goes to prison.
- Mashable calls it a fabulous mindfuck that questions Holmes, Fielder, and whether documentary objectivity is even possible.
- Expect laughs, discomfort, bold twists, and formal risks—not a conventional true-crime crowdpleaser.
The lobby of Alice Tully Hall felt kinetic on Sept. 30 as press, patrons, and the public waited for the New York Film Festival premiere. A project that once sounded like a Mad Libs gag or a brain-rot meme had become an internet sensation almost overnight.
That surge started when A24 dropped a teaser on Sept. 6 showing Holmes in intimate conversation with Fielder. A secret Telluride world premiere, timed to the teaser debut, proved the movie was real and unleashed unhinged rumors about what it contained.
For readers who track how old scandals get remixed for new audiences, this fits the Nostalgia: Then & Now beat—Theranos lore meets a formally retro, reality-blurring documentary experiment that looks back at how we once trusted polished founders and filmed “truth.”
What is You Can See Everything actually about?
On its face, the setup is ridiculous. Fielder—known for blurring reality and performance in Nathan For You and The Rehearsal—asks Holmes why she chose him. She answers with a warm smile and an intriguingly elusive insistence that she is being transparent and truthful.
Shooting began in the 36 days before Holmes turned herself in to begin her prison sentence for fraud. She allowed Fielder and a crew of seven into the home she shared with her children and fiancé Billy Evans, then invited Fielder to move into their cramped beach house in Del Mar. And he did.
That closeness is the point. Mashable notes the film wants you to question Fielder's perspective—whether he got too close to the subject he is meant to investigate—just as Holmes has beguiled and impressed people before.
Does the film say anything new about Elizabeth Holmes?
Reviewer Kristy Puchko went in dubious. Holmes already had the book Bad Blood, Alex Gibney's documentary The Inventor, the podcast series The Dropout, and Hulu's dramatic adaptation starring Amanda Seyfried. What could be left to say?
Plenty, according to the review. You Can See Everything is framed as a masterwork of interrogation—not only of the Holmes saga, but of documentary as a form. Rumors about full-frontal nudity, outrageous statements, bonkers twists, and laughs big and uncomfortable are confirmed. Underneath sits something more cerebral and unnerving.
The film opens like a fly-on-the-wall portrait of “Liz” and “Billy,” then reveals Fielder lurking from a corner or outside their home as an audience surrogate. As he moves closer, he risks becoming another person impressed by Holmes—and the suffocatingly intimate camera straps viewers to that experience.
Shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio reminiscent of 1990s television, with a multi-camera home setup catching every microexpression, flinch, and twitch, the movie forces you to look Holmes in her unblinking eyes and decide what is truth and what is a lie. It is not easy.
Why do the second-half choices matter so much?
Even after internet rumors, a non-spoiler surprise lands hard: Holmes goes to prison around the halfway point of the nearly three-hour runtime. After that, Fielder and Oppenheim's access becomes extremely limited, so they turn to reenactments.
As in The Rehearsal, Fielder brings in an actor to play opposite him and recreate moments the crew could not catch on camera, then talks through the scenes for deeper understanding. Because the original interactions were not recorded, only his memory remains—and he questions that memory on camera. The actor even accuses him of liking Holmes too much to stay objective.
That wrinkle is the film's core. Documentaries cannot be fully objective; they are, as Holmes says in the film, human stories. Framing, cropping, and editing shape the message. The movie challenges viewers to rethink how we decide what is true in docs and news media alike.
Puchko reports gasping, shouting, laughing, and even gagging. As a work of art, she argues it should endure for its bold choices, interrogation of form, and Fielder's brave vulnerability in exposing his own doubts and shortcomings.
So does the hype hold? On Mashable's evidence, yes—if you want a mesmerizing, uncomfortable stunner more than a tidy Theranos recap. Bring patience for nearly three hours, skepticism for every smile, and an appetite for documentary gamesmanship that feels both old-school and newly unhinged.