You probably already have a relationship with Nathan Fielder, the director and producer of You Can See Everything, which is electrifying the streets of my internet feed like nothing has since Borat (lol, sorry, I picked that movie because, amazingly, You Can See Everything just had the largest debut for a movie released on less than 1,000 screen since 2007’s Borat. But truly, the buzz around Borat in my high school? Off the damn charts). Maybe you’ve seen clips of Nathan For You, Fielder’s first big production in which he offered straightforward, dry, and remarkably idiotic solutions to small businesses to boost their successes. Maybe you saw him walking around with Emma Stone a bunch in 2024 after starring alongside her in the esoteric dramedy The Curse on HBO. Maybe you saw his other HBO production, a spiritual successor to For You that involved allowing everyday people with specific problems to rehearse what it would be like to try and solve those problems (in a show called The Rehearsal). It’s possible, of course, that you don’t know this man at all. I don’t blame you if you don’t; Fielder, on his surface, is a behind-the-scenes operator, solving your problems and simply recording reality.
Reality, however, is never quite that simple.
You Can See Everything, released in theaters this past Friday, is a product of years of work. It is also a product of years of waiting, as its primary subject, Elizabeth Holmes, sat in jail for committing major fraud. While she was in jail, Fielder – who shot a nearly full-length film during the 35 days before Holmes surrendered herself to the Texas facility in which she still serves time – created two HBO shows (noted above) that were singularly obsessed with perspective, objectivity, and whether the two can ever coexist.
Viewers of The Rehearsal's full first season were made aware that Fielder’s wacky, non-chalant, awkward-as-hell style of interacting with people in structured, highly manufactured spaces was transformed from his For You days into something way stranger, something unthinkable. It pushed the boundaries of taste, of interest, of ethics, and of documentary as a form. And it was thrilling.
Many people turned away from the show, unable to handle its impossible depths of sincerity, of clarity, of subjectivity, and of massive manipulation. Again, I don’t blame them. Fielder bent the methods of editing and filmic storytelling and used them to emotionally push and pull his viewers, and his documentary subjects, beyond the comfort levels of any other artist I have come across. I don’t think Fielder wanted to hurt anybody, but I do think he wanted to break us out of glass cages that are built around us, even if we catch a couple scrapes in the process.
His new film pushes some of the same buttons as his recent shows, but there is a decisive difference at its center: a person that we “know”. Elizabeth Holmes, co-founder and co-frauder of Theranos in the early 2010’s, allows Fielder unfettered access to her and her family’s life for a month before she goes to prison. He accepts the offer, and even accepts an elevation of the offer when he moves into the spare suite attached to Holmes’ San Diego rental. What follows is an earnest exploration and investigation into Holmes as a person, as a failure of a massive swing, as a criminal, as a highly-seen and much-discussed piece of subject matter. It’s Fielder’s most journalistic venture yet, despite his search being upended and torpedoed by another participant in Fielder and Holmes’ story: her romantic partner Billy Evans, who is entrenched in Holmes’ follow-up business, entrenched in her day-to-day living, and entrenched in her psyche and soul. Whether she willingly invited Billy into these things is a mystery Fielder also attempts to solve.
After bouncing around this family-in-turmoil’s home for 90 minutes, we watch Holmes head off to prison, and the principals of the movie all go on with their lives. But Fielder can’t let it go there, even if he has to wait a remarkable amount of time to pick up the phone again.
What comes next, in the final 90 minutes of the film, is a disassembly of the project we just spent 90 minutes watching. It’s a reexamination of the people involved, the facts involved, the methodologies used, and of the goal of all of these questions. It brings in new participants that inspired a room-wide gasp at my theatrical viewing, it prompts deeply uncomfortable questions and scenarios, and it breaks walls that we had otherwise been comfortably residing within.
It is a truly remarkable work, one in a quickly-storied decade of work from Fielder. The film relies on, and works best with, a lack of knowledge on the viewer’s behalf, so I won’t speak any more to the details. I simply recommend the movie with all of my head and all of my heart. It is fantastically funny, it is shockingly human and earnest, and it is enlightening: to the human condition, to the possibilities of any one person, and of the limits of our typical story-telling natures. It is a movie about truth and deception, objectivity and subjectivity, family, attention, communication, control, and perhaps above all, a movie about love, its depths, its possibilities, its origins, and its unknowable power. I wouldn’t wish Holmes’ situation on my worst enemy. Fielder might wish it for himself. What side will you find yourself on?
A great part of this movie is all of the other movies it reminded me of, it reflected back to me, or it might lead me to.
If you watched and enjoyed, or are interested in the proposition of this movie, then you’ve gotta seek out my favorite exploration of subjectivity and objectivity in cinema from the mast Orson Welles: 1973’s F is for Fake.
Like Fielder’s film, Fake is a dish best served cold. Find it, and hit play.
Of course, the movie is a direct parent of Fielder’s The Rehearsal, and if you like this movie, you simply must watch this next. The second season of the show takes the same central idea and applies it to the most niche subject matter I have ever considered: airline co-pilot morality?
While you are on HBO watching The Rehearsal, go ahead and hit play on Succession, either for a repeat viewing or a first-timer. The show is a frustrating, grating, beautifully funny rendering of kings-in-the-making who, like Holmes, are the strangest and least likely to succeed people you’ve ever come across. The show’s alignment with our reality plays beautifully for those seeking to wonder about perspective and truth and the like.
A new film that is the perfect addition to See Everything is Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime, a fictional telling of Chris Hansen and his show To Catch a Predator. Oppenheim is an up-and-coming director (Primetime is his feature debut) who also co-directed You Can See Everything with Fielder. Oppenheim is the craftsman that makes Everything look so cinematic and surreal. Want to have another strange dalliance with truth and manipulation with beautiful visual and auditory craftsmanship? Let’s go see Primetime together, baby.
Lastly, this moves me to return to a whip-smart cinematic polar opposite of a film that focuses on another Silicon Valley icon: 2015’s Steve Jobs. This was the last movie that Aaron Sorkin did what he always should have: written scripts for other, more talented directors to make. This one was directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later etc.), and is about Steve Jobs. The movie, like everyone who worked with Jobs, kind of hates him, and isn’t afraid to show him as the asshole he surely was. But, like Holmes and her disgusting male partner, Steve Jobs also invites you to ask where this person came from, how they were molded, why they became this way, and what it is they are truly after. It is full of bravado, of great filmmaking and soundtracking, of great performances, of classic Sorkin soliloquies, and with, thankfully, Seth Rogen playing the voice of the sensible viewer, pressing Steve to answer the same simple question over and over: what the fuck is wrong with you? I have seen it probably 8 times, and I hope to see it 20 more. Something about it really grinds my gears (complimentary).
Happy viewing, everyone. I hope spooky season is finding you comfy and cozy. There are many more great works coming to theaters this holiday season, so it’s time to re-develop the habit of checking the listings every Friday.
See you at da’ movies.