Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim have released You Can See Everything, a three-hour A24 documentary thriller. The film tracks disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and her family during the 34 days preceding her prison sentence.
The 34-day countdown to Elizabeth Holmes' incarceration
In You Can See Everything, director Nathan Fielder and his crew embed themselves within the private lives of Elizabeth Holmes, her husband Billy Evans, and their two children.. the film captures the claustrophobic tension of the final 34 days before Holmes began her prison sentence, transforming a biographical account into what viewers have described as a thriller. According to the report, the film has already become a critical and box office hit, leaving audiences in cities like Montreal engaged in heated discussions long after the credits roll.
The production's intensity is highlighted by the reactions of cinema-goers such as Claudia Pharand, who noted that the film's tension is amplified by Nathan Fielder's own on-screen presence. Pharand observed that Fielder's expressions while observing Elizabeth Holmes and Billy Evans add a layer of psychological depth to the narrative, making the documentary feel less like a report and more like a cinematic experience.
From 'This Hour Has 22 Minutes' to the blurring of non-fiction
Nathan Fielder's approach to You Can See Everything is the culmination of a career spent dismantling the boundaries of reality. Born and raised in Vancouver, Fielder began his trajectory in sketch comedy on the CBC program This Hour Has 22 Minutes before gaining international notoriety with Comedy Central's Nathan For You and HBO's The Rehearsal. These projects established Fielder as a provocateur who treats non-fiction as a malleable medium.
Barry Hertz, a film editor for the Globe and Mail , suggests that Fielder's work exists in a "porous line" between the organic and the manufactured.. As reported in the source, Hertz views Fielder's projects as experiments that explore what is interesting versus what is real. This technique is central to You Can See Everything, where the blend of documentary footage and thriller pacing cerates major plot twists that challenge the viewer's perception of the truth.
The lineage from John Grierson's 1939 NFB to modern thrillers
While Nathan Fielder's style is innovative , critics argue it is deeply rooted in a specific Canadian tradition of documentary filmmaking. this legacy began in 1939 when Scottish filmmaker John Grierson founded the National Film Board (NFB), an institution credited with pioneering and naming the "documentary" genre. the NFB's commitment to embedded filmmaking provided the blueprint for future generations of Canadian creators.
A direct parallel can be drawn to the 1969 work of Vancouver-born director Allan King. In his film A Married Couple, King embedded a camera crew inside the home of Toronto residents Billy and Antoinette Edwards during a period of marital crisis. By placing the lens inside the domestic sphere to capture raw, unfolding drama, Allan King paved the way for the intimate, high-stakes embedding that Nathan Fielder employs in You Can See Everything to capture the collapse of Elizabeth Holmes' world.
Will A24's gamble lead to a Best Picture Oscar?
Despite the critical acclaim , several questions remain regarding the film's ultimate trajectory. While some observers have speculated that You Can See Everything could contend for the Best Picture Oscar, it remains unclear how the Academy will categorize a film that intentionally blurs the line between a documentary and a manufactured thriller. The source notes the film's success but does not specify if the "plot twists" menioned by viewers are based on new evidence regarding Theranos or are products of Fielder's directorial manipulation.
Furthermore, the report focuses primarily on the reactions of critics and movie-goers, leaving the perspective of Elizabeth Holmes and Billy Evans largely unheard outside of their appearances in the film. Whether the subjects viewed the 34-day embedding as a therapeutic exercise or a predatory cinematic experiment remains an open question.
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