Warning: Spoilers Ahead.
“You Can See Everything” is a documentary by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, that highlights the billionaire turned fraud convict Elizabeth Holmes. After staying silent for seven years, Holmes invited a film crew into her home during her final 34 days before serving a sentence of more than 11 years in federal prison.
Elizabeth Holmes is the infamous founder and CEO of Theranos; a health technology company claiming to have created a device that could screen for a wide range of diseases using just a single drop of blood. Holmes was just 19-years-old when she dropped out of Stanford University to focus on her company in 2003.
Theranos made a name for itself in the early 2010s when it was said to be a revolution for blood-testing technology. By 2015, Holmes was named the youngest self-made female billionaire in the United States by Forbes. Though, it was in the same year that allegations towards Theranos were brought to light. Several journalistic investigations had exposed the company’s false claims about its product, and it was proven that Theranos’s technology could not perform to the level that Holmes had told investors. Theranos, Holmes, and Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the company’s former Chief Operating Officer, were charged by the SEC on the account of raising $700 million from investors through fraudulent statements. Following this, Forbes revised Holmes net-worth to $0.
“You Can See Everything” captured the true deceiving behavior of Elizabeth Holmes and partner Billy Evans. When Fielder questioned Holmes’ integrity behind Theranos, the founder would respond by saying that she never once lied about the abilities of her company’s product. Holmes also told Fielder that she would continue working on the blood-testing device no matter where she goes, “even in a cage.”
Holmes made Fielder aware that she has no doubt about her version of reality. She had previously told investors that Theranos “can run every blood test,” and Holmes continued to support that statement. Fielder then brought up the use of her wording to be misleading to investors, maybe Holmes meant to say Theranos “has the capability to run every blood test.” In her aloof disposition, Holmes saw no difference between the statements.
It was made obvious that Holmes felt no remorse to the investors she had scammed or the people she could have put at risk with her faulty blood-testing device. She only felt sorry for her young children having to grow up without their mom. Holmes had a two-year-old son and three-month-old daughter at the time she was sent to prison.
Some believe that Holmes is selfish to have children knowing she would soon be sent away. Though, others see it was an intentional strategy to help her case. In 2022, her first pregnancy allowed Holmes’ trial hearing to be delayed by one month. And her second pregnancy was able to set back the start of her prison sentence. The choice of having children could have been a humanizing tactic for Holmes, a way to gain sympathy in hopes of a shorter, less restrictive sentence. Some viewers of the documentary have noticed that Holmes and Evans would conveniently need to attend to their children when they were asked questions that they did not want to answer.
Billy Evens displayed a controlling nature throughout the doc. There were moments when he was overprotective of Holmes, interfering with the questions being asked of her. At other times he was strict about what Fielder can and cannot film, even interrupting an interview with an acquaintance and calling for cameras to be shut off.
He and Holmes repeatedly showed annoyance towards Fielder’s presence, despite his invitation to stay with them. An example being when Fielder moves into their beachside rental, his bedroom is left with no mattress, and when he brings up the issue, Holmes and Evans brush him off and act as if it is an unreasonable request.
When discussing the backlash that she received from her company’s downfall, Holmes expressed her resentment towards the 2022 Hulu miniseries “The Dropout;” and her disliking of Amanda Seyfried for portraying her. The CEO believed that the series was inaccurate in the way she managed Theranos, forcing her image to be dragged even farther by the media. Later, Fielder sat down with Holmes and Evans to watch the TV show, an activity that left Holmes feeling distressed.
The first half of the documentary ends with Holmes saying goodbye to her loved ones and making her way to the minimum-security Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas. Fielder was not allowed to record interactions with Holmes while incarcerated, making that the end of her appearance in the film. Though, there was plenty more to discover about the convicted fraudster in the second half.
Taking place two years into the absence of Holmes, Fielder called Amanda Seyfried to reflect on his time with Holmes. He showed the actress his edited footage of the doc, and then discussed some of the off-camera experiences shared with Holmes. Fielder had written transcripts to match those conversations and Seyfried helped him recreate those scenes.
Seyfried gets further into her performance the more she learns about Holmes; even feeling some sympathy towards her when it comes to her aggressive, micromanaging partner Billy Evans. Seyfried voices her opinion on Holmes and Evans’ relationship, disagreeing with the power he had taken while Holmes is away. Evans had been posting on X under Holmes’ account, making untrue statements and speaking in a way that is unfamiliar to Holmes. He had also allowed for the iconic image of Holmes holding a drop of blood to be used on billboards, knowing she hated the photograph.
Fielder then revealed that before the documentary’s production, Evans had attempted to negotiate a deal with A24 executives to make profit from the film’s earnings, all while Holmes was out of the room. Fielder and Oppenheimer were reluctant to make the deal as it could diminish the integrity of the film, yet they felt pressured to agree.
Though, when Fielder conversed with Holmes on camera, he discovered that she was not aware of the agreed upon deal; “Obviously I’m not making any money whatsoever from this,” said Holmes. A statement that surprised Fielder, making him question why Evans would leave her in the dark; even though Holmes repeatedly told Fielder she never cared about the money when it came to Theranos. The filmmaker wondered if Holmes truly did not know, or if she was the greatest manipulator of all time.
