You Can See Everything

Master manipulator Liz Holmes and her new partner, Billy the cocaine psychopath, are a match made in heaven. Each is perfectly suited to the other's selfish purposes, alongside an uncharacteristically taken-aback Nathan Fielder in this slightly too long three-hour movie.

This "documentary" will give you more than your fair share of hysterical moments alongside some depressing parts you can hardly believe. Theranos 2.0 and all the underhanded ambitions pursued with no shame or guilt by the subjects of the film are something you pray most of the audience can see through. But as the title of the film teases, you cannot see clearly when reality is warped. There is a whirlwind telling you to doubt what you know to be true because what you're seeing and hearing isn't quite clear.

Nathan Fielder is typically the harmless puppet master -- putting people into odd scenarios and staring them down for deadpan humor. The second season of The Rehearsal and The Curse are both brilliant. But the fit here with Nathan and Liz/Billy is eerie, because anyone with an inkling of understanding about what Liz did can see Nathan is being used by her to portray a certain picture in a clearly manipulative attempt to rehabilitate her image prior to the prison sentence. Liz is shown from that one facet a bit too much -- the family-first, head-over-heels-in-love person who unfortunately is on "the spectrum" and therefore absolved of assholery. She "thinks differently," as the film puts it, with minimal pushback on her but plenty on Billy's buffoonish antics. And I get it: it adds to the narrative not to have things clear-cut, and boy howdy, would that call to Nathan have felt like a dream come true.

You can extend sympathy or empathy and whatever form of forgiveness you see fit for charlatans like Elizabeth Holmes. But costing people their health and their money has a gravity of harm that ought to consume the offender's path back to society. And the technical underpinnings of what she was actually convicted vs. "not guilty" of do not absolve her of guilt. The verdicts merely provide her ample wiggle room to try and rewrite reality, in her own favor and at the expense of anyone, yet again.

Those who refuse to admit any wrongdoing? Those who deny reality so stubbornly that you yourself begin to question it, that is a hard force to reckon with. And not one to be tolerated, even for entertainment. For the entire duration of the movie, you get a jet stream full of that kind of reality-warping evil -- which is a nifty device, but one to handle more carefully.

With Nathan seemingly psychologically stonewalled by a deluded, reality-warping couple, the real highlight elevating the experience was the incredible shots from director Lance Oppenheim and the film crew. It spanned years, veered into meta-analysis of the situation with Amanda Seyfried, and painted such a powerful picture that I cannot get past the need to bend reality back into place (because, as they painfully point out, objective interpretation is tough).

Nathan's work sometimes feels like it punches down, taking advantage of unwell or desperate people for laughs. This is not that in the usual sense. These three hours deal with Liz and Billy opposite Nathan, who indulges and practically greenwashes their ruthlessly ambitious and manipulative plans alongside the director. Nathan, Lance, and the seemingly group recognize the Liz and Billy deceit, but end up toying with “what is the truth” to such an extent that the production almost punches down at uninformed folks. Nathan’s obfuscation by omission almost one-sidedly gives them the benefit of the doubt in the name of aloofness. Stirring the pot of "what is real" and "how does subjectivity work" is a fun concept, but these are dangerous waters to play in.

You can hear the investor calls for Theranos 2.0, a blitz of nonsensical buzzwords, cocaine sniffs and all. But it waters too many seeds of doubt for those with only a passing interest in monsters like Liz and Billy to draw clear judgment, and it seemingly leads the audience to a failure in moral relativism, akin to the morally bankrupt true-crime podcasts that suggest “well lmaybe Ted Bundy wasn't such a bad guy if you look at him from the right angle…”

A more explicit condemnation of the types of delusion Liz and her new partner feed to the world around them was needed, even if it was fun pretending to be charmed by the charlatans' total commitment to the clearly fraudulent bit (and absolving Liz for one reason or another). The doubt it lets creep in on things like the New York Times reporter whose competence will now forever be questioned is unfortunate.

Doubting reality is an inescapable part of working with Liz. But that alone isn't interesting enough without a fuller understanding of the depths of the billion-dollar-fraud depravity she engaged in. You simply cannot play with people's wellbeing without destroying the fabric of humanity that allows you to safely interact with others. You can be forgiven, to an extent, but it should never be forgotten that you crossed that line.

Providing a better yin to Liz’s yang would have balanced this one without losing anything. Still worth a watch but I fear the actual impact of this film on the next generation of entrepeneurs and Theranos 2.0 as it will come to be.

This self-reported but obviously wishful, fake routine from the undeniable fraud herself. This nonsense routine seems so perfectly apt -- "calling bullshit immediately" and "doing everything she says" -- when faced with a mountain of evidence in reality pointing to the opposite.

Remember this the next time a convincing "genius" shares their biased, self-serving view of the world and tells you what worked for them and what you should do with your time on this earth, instead of gaslighting yourself into "maybe they think different and are misunderstood".

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