Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim spent 34 days living in Elizabeth Holmes’ California guest house before her 2023 federal prison surrender. Their three-hour documentary, You Can See Everything, explores the friction between performance and truth as Holmes attempts to reshape her narrative.
For weeks, industry talk around documentary circles, comedy, and fraud narratives has centered on a single viral preview clip. In it, absurdist auteur Nathan Fielder stares unblinkingly into the eyes of disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. The resulting film, You Can See Everything, premiered to a frenzy as a secret screening at the Telluride Film Festival before packing houses at the New York Film Festival. Co-directed by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, the three-hour documentary arrives in theaters on October 16 via A24, capturing a surreal experiment in observation, performance, and trust.
How Fielder and Oppenheim Entered the Holmes Household
The project began when Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans, approached A24 about making a documentary about their lives. At the time, Holmes was keeping a low profile following her 2018 conviction and awaiting the start of an 11-year federal prison sentence for defrauding investors in her blood-testing company. Fielder, who had read Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, heard about the outreach and asked to set up a meeting. Oppenheim had known Fielder for years after cold-emailing him as a fan, and the two had been looking for something to make together when Oppenheim heard that Holmes wanted someone to document her life. Fielder and Oppenheim went to A24 with no guarantee of delivery, telling the company they could not promise anything would come of it. Fielder and Oppenheim ultimately moved into the guest house at Holmes and Evans’ seaside rental in Del Mar, California, filming during the final 34 days before Holmes reported to federal custody. A24 gave the small crew the freedom to pull the plug if they found no story to tell. Instead, the filmmakers found themselves trapped in a psychological hall of mirrors.
Cognitive Dissonance and the Illusion of Sincerity
Throughout the shoot, both directors experienced severe cognitive dissonance. Fielder recounted the unnerving sensation of listening to Holmes speak on camera while internally tracking his own reactions, noting that she seemed so genuine at times that he had to constantly remind himself that she was a liar. Oppenheim framed it as a crew-wide condition during nightly debriefs where participants could not agree on what happened in front of them, noting that the laws of reality seemed to evaporate.
Rather than engineering elaborate prank setups reminiscent of his previous television work, Fielder largely adopted the role of an inquiring investigator. He confronted Holmes directly about remorse, morality, and the reality of her legal situation. In one stark exchange highlighted in marketing trailers, Holmes looks directly at the camera and insists she has nothing to conceal.
“I don’t have anything to deceive you on. Of course I’m not deceiving you. I’m engaging with you as a human being. Why would I deceive you?”
Elizabeth Holmes, Subject
Billy Evans and the Breakdown of the Production
While Holmes grants the filmmakers unprecedented access, her partner Billy Evans emerges as a distinct source of friction. Evans, whom Holmes married in 2017, frequently interrupts conversations and asserts control over the household. He boasts on camera about his strategic influence and resources, telling Fielder he knows people who can do just about anything while trying to pitch a reboot venture he dubs Theranos 2.0
.
That friction ultimately ruptured the relationship between the subjects and the crew. Fielder explained during the New York Film Festival Q&A that communication broke down because Evans attempted to exert a level of control over the project that made the filmmakers uncomfortable. Evans had not seen the finished documentary as of the festival premiere.
Legal Reality and Public Campaigning Ahead of Release
Holmes was convicted in January 2022 on four felony counts of fraud and conspiracy for lying about the capabilities of Theranos blood-testing technology. She entered the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, in May 2023 following a jury verdict that acquitted her of defrauding patients while convicting her on investor counts. New reports indicate she is slated to transfer to a halfway house next summer.
Holmes submitted a petition for clemency to the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney last December, which remains pending. Outside Lincoln Center following the New York screening, a truck parked on the street featured an LED screen displaying a portrait of Holmes alongside a call to action from an online campaign maintaining her innocence under the domain justblood.com.
