You Can See Some Things

This past Sunday, I watched Nathan Fielder’s You Can See Everything. The documentary starred Nathan Fielder pining after Elizabeth Holmes and her truth. I say “her truth”, because the movie focuses on understanding Holmes’ perspective on not just the case, but her life. At the end of the movie, Amanda Seyfried and I both wondered whether Nathan Fielder felt some type of way about Elizabeth Holmes. Not necessarily romantic, but it seemed like Fielder fell for the mystery, her unassuming charm, and supposed inability to comprehend the way small changes in word selection can convey entirely different meanings. Throughout the film, Fielder plays with the way small changes create ripple effects in language and film. Seyfried, playing Holmes, is instructed to repeat lines with varying inflection and word-choice to better represent Fielder’s recollection of his meeting with his subject in jail. Fielder includes short shots of Holmes and him swimming together in the ocean, shading Fielder’s objectivity as a documentarian. The memory of the filmmaker and Holmes are represented as imperfect, with conflicting details of conversations and media statements.

Most of these ideas come to focus in the back half of the film, when Holmes is sent to jail and the documentary loses their subject to federal prison. Up until this point, Holmes is the sole individual who is called into question. We zoom in on Holmes’ perspective. She maintains her innocence and Fielder attempts to answer: How could Holmes possibly believe she did nothing wrong? By the middle of the film, we have our answer. She is naive, incapable, or manipulative? At a minimum, it is concluded she did not understand how her wording oversold the capabilities of Theranos. Her representation of the work, in her mind, was accurate. It comes down to simple miscommunication. Whether the audience buys the story is up to the individual, but how can we decide whether that is truly what Holmes believes? The answer is we can’t. The documentary seems to accept Holmes’ explanation, and the back half of the film explores how memory, even within a short period, can lapse. If Fielder’s memory is called into question, it would be no shock that Holmes misremembers events and feelings from nearly a decade prior.

Through demonstration, the documentary provides an explanation for Holmes’ point-of-view, as Fielder tests her repeatedly with comedy sketches and questioning. Holmes is either an expert at preserving her narrative, or actually incapable of understanding the impact of language. The film’s interest in memory also suggests that for Holmes, her current understanding is “her truth”. Perhaps at one point Holmes did attempt to deceive, but her conception of that time has become so warped that she convinces herself otherwise. Untangling the “truth” is impossible, so the documentary opts to explore more philosophical questions. My favorite part of the film was Fielder’s willingness to call his own work into question. Fielder is not objective, no art is objective. While Fielder is fantastic, he is even more fantastic for calling out his own potential biases (that being in favor of protecting Holmes) within the film. The act of selecting footage, scoring the film, etc. are all conscious choices impacted by worldview, experience, and resulting bias. Fielder uses this fact to add complexity to the documentary. The film does not view itself as objective, and calling out the bias makes this visible to the audience. The film’s awareness situates it as a commentator rather than an authority on the subject. The audience is invited to contemplate how perception and time has impacted Holmes and her views, but also how these forces impact the making of the documentary. Film, at least in this case, is human made and subject to the same forces and warping as Holmes.

The film underscores the importance of perception. Like anything, perception can have a varying degree of impact, but for Holmes, her perception of specific events spanning a few decades prior impacts every aspect of her life. She is in jail, her family is without a mother, her husband spends his time inventing, inspired in many ways by Theranos. Perception defines her sense of self, her mission, her husband’s mission. Holmes still craves invention and innocence. I would also argue that society’s rejection has pushed her further towards her family unit. Holmes defines herself as a mother, and she describes her husband and herself as one mind. Her husband acts as her voice to the extent that he has power of attorney over Holmes. Her perception, and society’s perception has led Holmes to the one place she can find solitude, her family, and she willingly relinquishes control over her life to her spouse. Perception cannot be trusted, as memory of the experiences that shapes perception is imperfect. What we think and how we think about things is not “reality”. At the same time, it is our reality, because it is the only experience we have to go off. This film questions perception. Questioning and understanding the flaws of perception, will lead people to better align their decisions with their values. Like the film, we will often arrive at no answer, wondering what led us to our current perspectives. But, questioning also leaves room to re-evaluate and adjust. Nothing in this blog post is especially revolutionary. However, Fielder’s ability to provide such a nuanced perspective is laudable. It is also visually satisfying. Boost the letterboxed rating. Bye!