Nathan Fielder Vs. Elizabeth Holmes in 'You Can See Everything' is Just ... Wow
Sometimes I like to think about what it would be like telling my past self about the strange things my future self will do. In this particular case, I wouldn't need to talk to myself in high school. Or college. For this particular scenario, I'd only need to go back about six weeks.
I'd tell my six-week-younger self that I'd be sitting through a three hour long documentary about Elizabeth Holmes. My younger self would, at first, say, "no chance." Then my younger self would wonder what vast amount of money I was being given to put myself through such a thing. "Oh, no, there's no money. In fact, it's an almost impossible ticket and you will be calling in every favor to get one."
Of course, add Nathan Fielder's involvement to, "a three hour documentary about Elizabeth Holmes," and that changes quite a bit. The last time we saw Nathan Fielder, he had taught himself how to fly a commercial airliner. What could You Can See Everything even possibly be about? The result is one of the strangest things I've ever seen. And one of the most remarkably structured² documentaries ever made.
²When I wrote about Digger, I joked "Unpleasant" should be a poster quote. Then Warner Bros. actually quoted me in a Digger commercial in which Tom Cruise says, "fuck those people," then my name pops up three times. My point is, "remarkably structured" has a real chance now.
The premise of You Can See Everything (which just had its New York Film Festival debut) is that co-directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim are invited to spend a considerable amount of time at Elizabeth Holmes's San Diego home only a month before she reports to prison, eventually just staying there full time. If you're wondering why Nathan Fielder was invited to be at Elizabeth Holmes’s house in the first place, he doesn't seem to know either. And it's never really made clear, even though Fielder certainly asks this quite often, even though Holmes does not at all seem to be familiar with Fielder's work. This is such a bizarre film. I don't know how to stress this enough without falling into the "I can't stress this enough" meme trap....
(Here's where I try to persuade you to become a paid subscriber even though this piece is for free subscribers. This movie was a really tough ticket and I could have sold this review to an outlet, but I decided I'd rather give it to the readers of this newsletter. So, yes, I am hoping karma leads to new paid subscribers so I can continue to afford writing this newsletter for you.)
