‘You Can See Everything’ revolutionizes the genre of documentaries forever

By Evan Allred

Trust is difficult to earn and quite easy to lose. Who you trust is very important and can impact all aspects of your life. That being said, when someone is proven to be untrustworthy, how can they earn back your trust? Is it by proving that they were never untrustworthy to begin with? Or simply repenting of their faults. This documentary explores what happens when someone so notorious for being untrustworthy opens up her whole life for the world to see.

Before sitting to watch this wild three-hour documentary, most movie-goers should research the subject of this movie. Elizabeth Holmes was the founder of the company: Theranos. This company claimed to have produced a device that could run any blood test with a minute sample of blood based upon high levels of chemistry. Elizabeth was a young ambitious inventor who originally seemed to genuinely care about her work and the effects that it would have on the world.

Elizabeth ran this company with the help of her current business partner / lover, Sunny Balwani. This business was heavily invested in and Elizabeth was described as forming “the most illustrious board in U.S. corporate history.” Upon further investigation, Theranos was found to be a fraudulent scam and Elizabeth was criminally charged, sentenced to 11 years in prison. 

Because of the fame of the story and all the news that was compounded on Elizabeth and her family, she wanted a documentary to be filmed about who she really was by giving complete transparency into her life. A24 filmed this documentary led by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim.

This documentary is a wild ride and completely wrecks the mind of the viewer. Questions race across the audience’s mind as they wonder who and what they can believe from this documentary.

Right off the bat, this movie proves that it is not the usual A24 movie shown in theaters. There are no actors portraying the characters in this movie, rather everything is real and raw. Everything seen in the lives of this family truly happened. 

Elizabeth and her husband, Billy Evans completely open up their home to the production team with cameras and microphones surrounding their family during her final days as a free woman. 

The purpose of this was, in Elizabeth’s eyes, to show who she was to the public and to eliminate the false view that the media might portray. Billy seemed to understand why they were there and knew that it was to paint a picture of who they really were, but seemed very irritable at times.

There were many moments in this movie that were so serious yet so humorous. Many of the claims made by both Elizabeth and Billy seem so inaccurate that it was astonishing that they remained so solemn about them. Elizabeth makes the statement that she cannot remember if she has ever lied in her entire life, while Billy states that she had nothing to gain by marrying him, failing to mention his wealthy family. 

Another key detail about this movie was Nathan’s role within Elizabeth’s family dynamic. He was with the family for over a month, and even stayed the night at their house many nights. This was the “crunch time” before she was arrested and sent to prison, yet Nathan was there the whole time. 

For Billy, Nathan seemed to be a plague or almost like a demon that he could not rid himself of —-constantly asking the right questions that Billy obviously did not want to be asked. However, for Elizabeth, Nathan was almost like an angel, her only friend within this circumstance that she found herself within. This difference of his role in their family truly reveals the difference between Billy and Elizabeth and speaks to the “love” that they spoke so fondly of in their marriage.

The second half of the movie really hinges on Billy’s character and focuses on events that happened off-screen. This is certainly an odd thing to do for this documentary. For a film that was based upon the transparency that Holmes gave to the production team, they really did not find much on-screen. The dishonesty that they so clearly expected to find on camera never really showed up, and instead was reminiscent of “mining diamonds off-screen.” 

Nathan focused so much on a conversation with Billy that happened prior to their filming, which  hurt the credibility of this documentary. In addition to this, Nathan also focuses on a conversation with Elizabeth that happened during a prison visit that also was not recorded. For a film that was based upon full transparency, there was a lack of sound facts to back up claims.

Overall, this movie was a great experience and really affects the minds of its viewers. This film will certainly leave a taste of puzzled distrust within its audience.

“You Can See Everything” is currently playing in theaters

Evan Allred is a fourth-year MDiv and writer for Cedars in the Arts & Entertainment department. This movie gave him trust issues that will take a long time to get rid of.

Images courtesy of A24