You Can See Everything catches a lot

Documentaries come in many forms, some just naturally flowing with a fly-on-the-wall approach, others with a point to make. You Can See Everything about Elizabeth Holmes mixes styles and often feels like a plot-driven feature film. The project’s center of attention already served as lead character in a Hulu series called The Dropout, marketed as a biographical drama. You Can See Everything comes as a meta documentary, which includes the filmmaking process as part of the story. Co-directing with Lance Oppenheim, comedian Nathan Fielder of The Rehearsal joins his subjects on screen as he tries to make sense about ramifications of the 2022 wire fraud and conspiracy case against Holmes. His access proves truly amazing since she and her partner Billy let Fielder stay with them the month before her 10-year prison sentence. Fielder and Oppenheim add another dimension after they can no longer directly talk with Holmes in prison when they get the woman who won an Emmy playing her to do so again. Amanda Seyfried arrives on the scene as both herself and Holmes, joining Fielder in trying to figure out some form of truth. They wonder, did Holmes get railroaded? Did she know and understand the failures with the product she created? Can she act well enough to play naïve and dumb? As Fielder and Seyfried look at a flawed woman, they reveal their own weaknesses, and this makes for intriguing character studies. Fielder seems slightly smitten with Holmes, tossing her softball questions compared to the hardballs he sends to her partner. Seyfried tries to defend the mushy line that a dramatic biopic skirts since imagined scenes come off as reality when watched. Ultimately, Seyfried gets the defining conclusion about the case.  “It’s complicated,” she says. Yes. Complicated, and fascinating, a creative exploration of real-life conundrums.