Film Reviews

October 16, 2026

One of the fundamental reasons we go to the movies is to find answers, to make sense of a subject, and to hopefully find reason in why people (including ourselves) behave a certain way. This applies even more to documentaries, because with non-fiction, we feel the filmmakers have an even greater responsibility to enlighten us through truth and real human observation. Sometimes, though, a film like "You Can See Everything" comes along and flips this notion on its head, and we walk away more perplexed than when we went in.

In addition to being frustrating and disruptive, both in a good way, what's remarkable about "You" is that it manages to feel one-of-a-kind, which is somewhat unheard of these days. It's hard to think of another recent documentary that merges traditional interviews, cinéma vérité, and reenactments so absorbingly. On top of that, it has multiple identities, a quality that appears to be by design. The film is just as much a bittersweet drama as it is a suspenseful nailbiter, and over the course of its nearly three-hour runtime, it evolves into an indelible and wonderfully disorienting epic that's so much more than what it seemingly starts out as.

Going into it, it's reasonable to assume directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim initially set out to make an intimate exposé of Elizabeth Holmes and her partner of nearly 10 years, Billy Evans. Holmes is, of course, the infamous and now deposed CEO of Theranos, the healthcare technology company that falsely claimed to have developed a device that could run a series of blood tests on just a single drop of blood, virtually cutting out the lab middle man. (I'm sure you've seen the famous black and white photo of a blonde, pale-skinned Holmes, donning her signature black turtleneck [inspired by her hero, Steve Jobs], holding a tiny vial in between her thumb and pointer finger.) The Theranos "Edison," as it was called, was the way of the future.

Spoiler alert: the device doesn't work, and it never did. And yet, Holmes still stands by its legitimacy, and at one point in time, she was worth $4.5 billion and the wealthiest female in America. Now she's worth zero, and when the film opens, she's 34 days from having to report to federal prison to begin her 11-year sentence for, among other things, defrauding investors. Her whole scheme was chronicled in John Carreyrou's popular page-turner, "Bad Blood," which is a terrific primer for "You."

The idea that Holmes and Evans invited Fielder, Oppenheim, and a crew of camera and sound people into their rented beach house in Del Mar, California, is fascinating and suspicious in and of itself, but fortunately, this is just one small head scratch on a much larger surface. The filmmakers are right to splice in just a brief recap of the Theranos scandal using archival news footage, which quickly brings us up to speed on the downfall of Holmes and Sunny Bulwani, Theranos' COO and Holmes' ex-boyfriend (who's currently serving a 12-year sentence). We're immediately made aware that "You" isn't merely going to be a different version of another documentary, "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley," which was solid and informative in and of itself. Rather, it's going to approach and examine Holmes and Evants from a whole other angle using new methods, and the result is engrossing.

From the beginning, Fielder pulls no punches with his line of questions, and to his credit, he interviews Holmes, Evans, and Holmes' parents around the clock. After all, Holmes and Evans told Fielder he could "see everything," and that's exactly what he does, even taking the couple up on their offer to stay in the guest bedroom. Fielder practically becomes a member of the family, which includes Holmes and Evans' two children, an infant and a newborn.

Given this setup, we might expect "You" will render as a juicy unmasking of Holmes and may even lead up to a "Gotcha!" moment. I'll not reveal whether it is or if it does, but I can say the film goes way beyond the somewhat routine structure of its opening act and gives us a lot more to unpack, more than any one review could summarize. What is certain is that Fielder, best known for making and hosting quirky TV projects ("Nathan for You," "The Rehearsal"), will henceforth be known as the Elizabeth Holmes documentarian, who, despite exhibiting a quiet and gentle disposition throughout, remains stalwart in his quest to interpret Holmes and Evans, and "You," as a result, maintains a ceaseless, tantalizing energy.

Deep down, I suspect Fielder and Oppenheim knew that, at its core, "You" would hinge on the question of whether or not Holmes knew/knows, or more importantly believed/believes, the Edison does not work, and whether she knowingly lied about it. How could the film not make this the focal point? It's inevitable that this puzzle leads to the line of awkward questioning and confrontations that transpire, and it's also unavoidable that we get caught up in the salaciousness of it all, not to mention rush to judge and become reactionary toward the vexing words that come out of Holmes and Evans' mouths. Indeed, a woman in my theater made her opinion known many times over, not least when Fielder debates with Holmes over the difference between "can" and "capable," or when Billy talks down to the actress Amanda Seyfried, who played Holmes in the Hulu mini-series, "The Dropout," and who, ironically, ends up playing a substantial role here too.

But as saucy as this can be, it's not all that "You" is. Fielder and Oppenheim's film leans into many more hooks and themes—deception, trauma, narcissism, opportunism, emotional abuse, AI ethics, enmeshment, codependency—and they steer it into territory that goes outside of what we could predict, and the beauty of "You" is just how fluid the storytelling is, and just how comprehensible all of its moving parts are, even if the conclusions about its subjects, including the filmmakers, remain unclear. This is what's so rich and maddening about "You": it spurs intense thought and discussions because we're trying to reconcile things that may be irreconcilable.

Is Holmes grounded or delusional? Is she a pathological liar or does she believe her own statements? Do she and Evans really believe the next iteration of the Theranos device is viable? To be clear, these are my questions, and I vacillate between the answers, which leads to another quality about this movie: every viewer is bound to have his or her own relationship to it, not least because it prompts us to examine our own truths, lies, and moral decisions.

I'm being deliberately vague about where "You" goes because, ultimately, and I know it's a cliché to say so, it's simply a movie you have to see to believe, and it's not one that can be digested quickly. It's frazzling and distressing, and it makes us want to gather in a circle with everyone in the theater immediately afterward to let our thoughts out. That's a testament to the magnetism of what Fielder, Oppenheim, and editor Adam Locke-Norton have assembled. This may end up being the most talked about film of the year, and then in the cultural zeitgeist for many years after that. It's shocking, messy, melodramatic, sometimes soothing, and sometimes morbidly fascinating, but all around it's incredibly watchable and entertaining. It's rare for any one film to run the gamut as far genres and generating such a wide range of emotional reactions, not least fatigue, because once it seems the filmmakers have gotten to the bottom of one aspect of Holmes, Evans, and their bewildering situation, we find out there's more, and we realize the only action the filmmakers can take is to keep digging. Eventually, though, they may have to accept that "everything" often gives way to "too much."