On Sept. 6, the teaser trailer for A24’s newest film, “You Can See Everything,” was released.
The trailer features comedian and satirist Nathan Fielder engaged in a deeply uncomfortable conversation with the founder of Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes.
Holmes is known for her fraudulent business, Theranos, a health technology company that claimed to be able to run countless medical tests with the blood from a finger prick. In 2015, investigative reporter John Carreyrou exposed Theranos, revealing that the tests produced inaccurate results. Additionally, Theranos often relied on standard medical testing machines (as opposed to the “Edison” machine they typically used) to pass proficiency testing, a process through which labs prove they can produce accurate results.
Eventually, Holmes went to trial for her fraud and was sentenced to prison for 11.25 years in 2022. “You Can See Everything” is a documentary that follows Holmes in the 34 days before she is sent to prison, allowing a film crew to document her life and allowing Fielder to speak to her personally. Interestingly, according to the film’s synopsis, this “intimate portrait becomes a mind-bending three-year journey.”
The documentary will likely not consist of typical storytelling measures due to Fielder’s previous work. For example, Fielder’s popular satirical comedy docu-reality TV show “Nathan for You” centers around Fielder using his business degree to help small businesses bounce back from failure. However, Fielder uses very unusual, comedic marketing methods (while playing it completely deadpan), leading to moments of tension and awkwardness that are ultimately very funny.
The spiritual successor to “Nathan for You” is “The Rehearsal”, a show with a truly bizarre premise. In “The Rehearsal,” Fielder directs “rehearsals” to help ordinary people prepare for important moments in their lives using actors and extensive resources. That unusual idea leads to out-of-the-box television. “The Rehearsal” is fairly experimental, but overall, it created a very unique television viewing experience.
With the schema of Fielder’s past work, it seems odd that he would take on a documentary about white-collar crime. However, it could be that he is actually the perfect person to take on such a project and potentially provide a distinctive perspective on Holmes’ life.
Although the teaser trailer is very brief and minimalistic, it sets a tone of tension and suspense. The close-up shots alternating between Holmes’ and Fielder’s faces as they speak to each other, combined with the eerie music and one wide shot at the end, create a very strange atmosphere.
In addition, the content of Holmes’ and Fielder’s conversation appears quite peculiar. Holmes insists she is not deceiving Fielder, and is instead engaging with him “as a human being.” The conversation continues in the same vein, with Fielder eventually asking Holmes if she is “being real right now.” To that, Holmes says she is “always being real.” The tension of the trailer, however, really comes from Holmes’ smiling, uncanny and unblinking facial expression in comparison with Fielder’s disturbed stare. Interestingly, as the trailer zooms out at the end, it is revealed that Holmes is rocking a baby bouncer with her foot.
It is also shown that Holmes has completely retired the deep voice she was well-known for in her Theranos days. When Theranos was in its heyday, Holmes would speak in a very unusually deep and distinctive voice for a woman. As revealed in a New York Times article, the voice was part of an act when promoting Theranos, and not her true voice. For the purposes of “You Can See Everything,” it seems that Holmes has embraced her more authentic self.
There is much more that is unkown about the film, as the teaser trailer does not reveal the actual structure or content of the documentary.
For those wanting to learn more about Holmes’ true nature, “You Can See Everything” comes out in theaters on Oct. 16.
