Ever since the first trailer went up for “You Can See Everything,” if not since word of the movie got up, schadenfreude lovers have been rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of Elizabeth Holmes getting more of what’s coming to her. Especially knowing that Holmes and her husband Billy Evans actually sought out Nathan Fielder, who exudes a natural skepticism, to make the documentary, there’s been an anticipatory bloodlust, that they must have been fools to imagine they were doing anything but helping set their own trap. That’s not a completely ill-founded expectation: Holmes comes off in the doc as every bit as innately bizarre as anyone showing up for a cinematic freak show might hope.
But the weirdest thing about the movie might be the fact that it at least allows for the possibility that the Evil Genius might be neither of the things contained in that descriptor, but rather somebody whose guileless act may not be that much of a put-on, because she’s dealing with some kind of mysterious damage we can only begin to guess at. In other words, it’s a movie with some sympathy for the devil, or at least — given the admitted inconclusiveness of its findings — the suggestion that empathy may be possible. Which may be not what you’re expecting walking in to what looks like a hilarious 174-minute takedown.
But the intentions of Fielder and his co-director, Lance Oppenheim, are embedded right in that first trailer that set the watching world ablaze. At the scene’s very end, when after a couple of minutes of Holmes smiling and staring earnestly into the narrator’s eyes, with a shaky head that makes it appear as if she’s developed some kind of anxious palsy, it’s revealed that she’s extending her left leg well off the couch to rock her baby. If you were watching that teaser carefully, the filmmakers were carefully signaling the whole movie: vast amounts of IRL comedic shock and awe, tinged with lingering bits of poignance as Holmes turns out to be a human being… if a still-unfathomable one.
So, let’s set a countdown for how long it takes for some souls on social media to begin calling Fielder a “cuck,” for having fallen prey to the manipulation of an obvious villain. But it’s not a movie that means to let Holmes off any hooks, only to ask some questions about where some of the invisible hooks in her impossibly strange life might lie. It’s a film that starts off with the intent to provide insight into a Leonard Nimoy-style Unsolved Mystery, with the idea that spending 34 days living with Holmes and Evans — and years of further production beyond her incarceration — would surely have to provide a few concrete conclusions about her psychology and/or crimes.
Instead, by the end, it makes solving the puzzle of UFOs seem like a cinch by comparison. Abormal psychology: it’s the Ultimate Trip! But the idea that, amid that inability to form answers, we could at least further consider what makes her tick will seem risible and outrageous to some viewers… and is also what makes the film rich and re-visitable enough to deserve the Best Picture nomination it’s clearly lined up to get.
If there’s a great crux moment for the movie, it’s in the scene fairly late in the three-hour proceedings that involve a sort of postmortem between Fielder and the Very Famous A-List Personality whose appearance A24 has asked viewers to consider a spoiler. (Her name will be ubiquitous enough in the weeks to come, but we can honor the surprise for now.) Fielder confesses how confused he is, after spending months doing intensive filming of Holmes and her husband and immediate family — basically wondering if, against all odds, it is possible that she could be as guileless as she comes off 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Upon hearing that confession, the Very Famous A-List Personality does everything but literally slap Fielder, suggesting that he must be experiencing some kind of Stockholm Syndrome to have been pulled in by her act. At this, some filmgoers will be practically standing up and cheering for the A-lister — she has at that moment become the audience’s surrogate, or stand-in for at least part of it, urging the host/filmmaker to snap out of his delirium.
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