Elizabeth Holmes and Nathan Fielder rest their heads on the back of a sofa as they talk, their faces inches away from each other. The camera is as close to them as it can be without actually touching them. Holmes’ eyes are as wide open as a doll’s; her lips are curled upwards, but it would be a mistake to call the expression she makes a smile. Between the hypnotic drone of her voice, the rhythmic movements of her head, and the constant repetition of the word “deceive,” it almost feels like she’s trying to lull Fielder into a trance. If there ever was a pure representation of the uncanny snake-oil-salesmen allure of the stereotypical tech billionaire, it would be found in the teaser of You Can See Everything.
In true tech billionaire fashion, Elizabeth Holmes’ story is one characterized by a quick rise and an even quicker fall. In 2003 she dropped out of Stanford to start Theranos, a health-centered tech company that promised to revolutionize blood tests. By 2014, Theranos would be valued at an estimated nine billion dollars. At just thirty-one years old, she was featured on Forbes’ “50 Richest Self-Made Women” list. In 2015, just a few months after her Forbes spotlight, she was caught in a media firestorm after journalists uncovered evidence of years-long fraud. Within the next three years, her company would become defunct and she would be indicted by a federal grand jury. She was found guilty of several counts of wire fraud in January of 2022, but, following the birth of her second child, would not be made to begin her sentence until May 30, 2023.
Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s upcoming documentary on Holmes, You Can See Everything, started filming thirty-four days before the May 30 deadline. In it, we return to the story of Elizabeth Holmes just as she is staring down the barrel of her own imprisonment. The years have transformed her into something unfamiliar. The infamous black turtleneck has been traded for sweaters; the red lip is gone and with it the full-coverage white foundation; her voice is not as deep. All the adornments that made her more “respectable” to those within tech have been stripped away.
This new Holmes is a family woman. The majority of the documentary’s promotional material takes place in the house where Holmes spends her final days as a free woman. Both her partner, the equally dubious William “Billy” Evans, and her daughter, Invicta, feature heavily in the documentary’s trailer. We see Holmes maneuvering around the kitchen while a diaper-clad Invicta stands patiently in the sink, we see her in bed with her partner, and we see the inside of Invicta’s fully stocked nursery. The title doesn’t lie; you really can see everything.
In any other documentary trailer, these scenes would be used to set up a sympathetic yet ultimately doomed family. It’s easy to imagine that this is the treatment that Holmes hoped for when she allowed the documentary crew into her home. Why else let them into her house, let them see her with her partner and child, if not to show that she is more than an infamous tech fraud? She’s a mother and a wife. Not only that, she’s the kind of mother that washes her kid in the kitchen sink, and the type of wife that takes early morning runs with her partner on the beach. The narrative practically writes itself: she’s an ordinary woman going through an extraordinarily hard time. Guilty or not, no one should be able to deny her the sympathy that comes with that. Unluckily for Holmes, sympathy requires a little more than a look inside the inner workings of her household. Especially since the camera isn’t just focused on her family.
Nathan Fielder, comedian and co-director of You Can See Everything, is—aside from Holmes—the person featured the most heavily in the trailer. His presence serves as a surrogate for the audience. We experience the household through him and his interactions with them; he is the conduit through which we are supposed to connect with and sympathize with Holmes. This makes it all the more surprising when you realize that he is almost never actually seen in the same shot as her. Throughout their conversations, the camera jumps from close ups of one speaker to close ups of the next.
This is far from unintentional. It shows that there is no emotional connection between Holmes and Fielder. There’s an unexpected amount of shots of Fielder on his own, and they’re often shown right after one of his fractured conversations with Holmes. Unlike the conversational shots, these are wide shots, allowing for the audience to see most of whatever room he’s in. Alone in the suddenly massive room, he looks isolated. This isolation doesn’t go away when he’s conversing. He’s still all alone in the close up shots. Despite being right in front of each other, he and Holmes, and to a lesser extent he and Evans, literally cannot get on the same page.
There are only two times where Fielder is in the frame with Holmes and/or Evans. If there’s any chance of connection, it would be found in these two shots. The first is an early shot where all of them are in bed together. Holmes is laying down; both Fielder and Evans sit on the bed. The shot is divided neatly in two; one one side, Holmes and Evans, both of them caught in their own world; on the other side is Fielder, observing. It feels voyeuristic. He’s in their bed, assumingly with their permission, but he’s still positioned as an outsider. It’s as if he’s watching a performance the couple has decided to put on for him. His voice can be heard asking Evans if he’s even been worried about Holmes’ scamming him. “One-hundred percent,” answers Evans.
In the next shot, Evans is cornered by Fielder in the kitchen. He asks if Evans has ever been suspicious that Holmes had lied to him. For the first time in the trailer, both Fielder and Evans are focused on each other. A chance for Fielder to gain an ally. Evans now claims he’s never once thought that Holmes had been lying to him, and the camera immediately cuts to him accepting her outreached hand. Fielder is once again left stranded. The progression of the shots does not leave it up to interpretation whose fault it is.
His isolation from the family is exactly what makes Holmes into such a menacing figure. Despite her play at domesticity, she’s a complete black box. She plays the part of a sensitive mother and gracious hostess as convincingly as she can. However, the more Fielder searches for the real Elizabeth, the more she retreats into this performance. We hear it in his voiceover—“I still have this weird feeling that there are some things I’m not seeing”—and see it in the way she’s framed in the second half of the trailer. Her face is obscured in almost half of the shots after the half-way mark, a literal manifestation of Fielder’s (and our) growing suspicion of her. Not only is there no one on his side, he isn’t even capable of understanding who he is up against.
In the last shot featuring Holmes, one of the only shots past the half-way point where you can see her face, she confesses that it’s taken her years to be able to cry in front of people. Her face is lit by warm orange lights; Fielder’s face is obscured by shadow. If there was ever a time to let the real Elizabeth Holmes come through, this would be it. A singular tear falls from her cheek. Maybe, once the documentary comes out, this will be a sign of genuine connection between her and Fielder. Maybe she means it. Maybe she’s been holding it in for years. For now, it feels practiced.
