The Elizabeth Holmes Documentary That Could Make Oscars History

A secret film about the final weeks of freedom

You Can See Everything follows Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in the weeks leading up to her incarceration, and it was made in near total secrecy. The three hour A24 film comes from comedian Nathan Fielder, working with co director Lance Oppenheim, and Morning Brew reports it hit theaters yesterday to a 99 percent critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Guardian called it more shocking, twistier, thornier, and more revealing than billed. That response matters because the project could easily have played as a stunt. Instead, critics are treating it as a serious portrait of a person who built a fraud on confidence, filmed by a performer whose whole career studies how people perform.

Not a rescue mission, a study of a character

Morning Brew stresses that this film is not Fielder trying to save a failed business, which is the engine of much of his earlier work. He spends time living alongside Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans, in the days before her imprisonment, trying to understand her elusive character. He ends up as the last person she hugs before she is driven away to begin her 11 year sentence.

The details around the edges are revealing on their own:

• Evans tries, without success, to negotiate a cut of the film proceeds for Holmes
• Evans admits he does not run some posts on Holmes social account by her first while she is in prison
• After Holmes reports to prison, Fielder brings in Amanda Seyfried, who won an Emmy playing Holmes in The Dropout, to reenact his odd conversations with her

Why the Oscars talk is not just hype

Hollywood watchers quoted by Morning Brew say the buzz and the critical response could make this the first documentary ever nominated for best picture in the nearly 100 year history of the award. Documentaries have won major honors for decades, but the top category has stayed closed to them. A nomination would redraw what the industry thinks a documentary can be.

The path here is worth studying for any filmmaker. The film was kept under wraps until a trailer arrived last month showing an unblinking Holmes assuring Fielder of her honesty. Secrecy, timing, and one unforgettable image did the marketing work that a long campaign usually buys.

What documentary makers in Florida can learn

Access is the whole game in documentary work, and access is earned with patience and trust, not with a bigger camera. Fielder got scenes nobody else could get because he stayed present for the small days, not only the dramatic ones. Event filmmakers and brand storytellers work the same muscle every time they follow a founder, an artist, or a team through a real process.

The second lesson is restraint in the reveal. This team held its footage, finished its film, and let one strong trailer open the conversation. If you are sitting on powerful footage right now, resist posting it in pieces. Build the finished piece, choose the single scene that proves its value, and let that scene carry the launch.