‘You Can See Everything’ review: Nothing to hide

Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder conduct brilliance in the astonishing You Can See Everything. 

What to make of You Can See Everything, a film tailor-made to get under our skin and provoke more questions than answers. It is both a befuddling documentary and meta-fiction, while keeping a crystal-clear gaze on its subject. Directed by Lance Oppenheim (Primetime) and Nathan Fielder (The Rehearsal), the film runs nearly three hours and could’ve gone three more. A beguiling investigation into the mind(s) of one, two, maybe three master scammers, it’s a twisted, delightfully madcap venture into what it means to tell the truth, what it means to believe your truth, and the ways in which we’ll lie to ourselves to maintain it.

It is also a movie about documentaries, about self-delusion and profiting from inflated self-importance and the nonsensical echo chamber babble of tech bros who have made billions based on bullshit. It’s about an artist’s ability to reckon with their work and worth, to be on the defensive and still have the most discerning eye, aside from Oppenheim, in the film. Mesmerizing, immense, and generating some of the most spit-inducing fury in the image of one feeble, controlling man, You Can See Everything lets us in under the guise of a tell-all, only to unhinge its jaw and swallow us whole.

Set 34 days before Elizabeth Holmes is due to begin her eleven-year prison sentence for defrauding the investors of her company, Theranos, Holmes and her husband, the punchable Billy Evans (who evades nearly every attempt at clarity), are playing house. Neither believes Holmes is in the wrong. By welcoming Oppenheim and Fielder into their beachside retreat, they think they can manipulate the discourse. A family — Holmes and Evans have two children together —about to face great change who can’t quite believe how badly their luck has turned out.

Nathan Fielder brings his requisite, unassuming chaos to the table.

But, of course, they didn’t think about how Fielder fits into this picture. Perhaps predictably, they didn’t do their research. Fielder brings an unassuming, unflappable yet curious perspective, and it’s that edge that allows the film to turn on its head as the countdown continues.

As he’s brought further into the fold, spending his days and nights in their home, he grows increasingly frustrated by their brazen lies and Evans’s interference, while also questioning the very nature of his point of view. Has he, too, been controlled by a narrative that Holmes doesn’t believe is true?

As her impending imprisonment looms and as Fielder struggles to find sincerity, the story slowly reveals its hand and its actual intent, even before the major, midway heel spin. This isn’t a story about a man’s search for the truth. It’s a story about a man trying to understand why someone would lie.

Whether Holmes is telling the truth or not (personally, going for not) or whether Evans is a sentient hemorrhoid (100% yes) isn’t the point. The point is to understand how a person can find themselves where Holmes is, facing over a decade behind bars for a false creation, and still somehow be able to speak both about how she’d been wronged and misunderstood and, more damning, how she can’t understand how she ended up here in the first place.

It isn’t a question about lies but about how we sell our truth.

Fielder uses every tool he can think of. In one of the best scenes of the year, he shows them the Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First” routine and tries to appeal to them on a human level, wondering whether Holmes simply doesn’t pick up on certain cues or struggles in conversation the way he does. He even gets a moment of genuine honesty from her father, one that would have been insightful had Evans not, once again, steamrolled it.

There’s a particular, exasperated charm to Fielder’s increasing incredulity as he responds to Holmes, his “Liz” holding more disbelief than seems reasonable for someone so often in control of the rooms he commands. In You Can See Everything, we watch as “why would she lie” turns into “how could she lie to me” and “how could I believe it.”

Adam Locke-Norton’s expert editing maintains tight control of the narrative flow, with compositions that are haunting or telling on their own and become prophetic as time moves on. The film emphasizes Fielder and Holmes sitting together on the couch watching videos, while we see Evans’s hand rub the base of Holmes’s neck, out of sight but always within reach.

It’s either an indictment of his possessive nature and puppeteering, or a well-orchestrated moment that suggests she’s not in control when, in reality, she may be weaponizing a doe-eyed, easygoing nature to swindle. Later, when we learn that Evans has been using her social media under this guise of total trust, it’s hard not to think of the hand on her neck or his taking the bowl of eggs from her hands.

You Can See Everything takes an intensive look at human nature.

There’s also, for instance, the moment she says that yes, she sometimes holds eye contact to flirt, refusing to sever it with Fielder. Or when she says she goes so long without crying in front of others, only to tear up often in front of the man who seems to orchestrate the narrative of her next chapter. It’s all a charade, though. One anchored in human nature, sure, but still a ruse. The intrigue comes from the desperate lengths Fielder goes to find where he made a master play and where he lost his hand.

Reenactments and a woman’s righteous fury at Evans, where she keeps a masterful composure as he tries to bully and belittle her, are worth the price of admission. Humans are complicated. We watch as Holmes visibly grows uncomfortable when Fielder shows her The Dropout, a series based on her life. But that doesn’t stop him from using those reenactments to interrogate what he doesn’t know, since he couldn’t get the footage.

Moving with simmering restlessness, the film’s pace pivots from straightforward documentary to a study of human nature and the impossible desire to see the world through another’s gaze while trying to force our own perspectives onto others. That needling desire and our inability to control the narrative. No matter how far we go, something will always stand out, wavering in indecision or obscured by emotion. A shaky hug, a misremembered comment, a poorly timed joke, and a brief interlude to the sea. Fielder has always operated in the hazy space between fact and fiction, and maybe, for the first time, You Can See Everything finds him grappling with the friction that space creates.

The bottom line.

Really, the opening scene telegraphs it all. Holmes and Evans play with their kids as Fielder looms, watching this innocuous moment with a furrowed concentration. This isn’t an idyllic image; it’s a puzzle to be solved.

Shot with unblinking focus, it steadily depicts a manipulative match of minds, a volcanic fool, and a clever star. You Can See Everything is a dazzling display of corrosive belief and delusions of grandeur.

Breathless in its undertaking and wonderfully thought-provoking, to the point of suggesting a necessary second visit, it takes the documentary format, plays within its standard lines, then punches holes in expectations. Laugh at this parade of madness as the filmmakers and their friends try to come to terms with the film they made, the questions left unanswered, and what it means to question your own take on a subject seemingly closed.

You Can See Everything is out now in theaters. Watch the trailer below. 

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Images courtesy of A24.