It’s been a while since I’ve written a movie review, so I decided to approach this review rather intuitively and candidly; write what comes to mind, and what most impressed me. Well, you can color me impressed! I have to say that You Can See Everything (2026) was absolutely entrancing in a way that kept you interested, not necessarily in the outcome for Elizabeth Holmes, but entirely in the direction the directors (Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim) were going to take with their storytelling. It was just as much a documentary about Elizabeth Holmes as it was a documentary about the making of the documentary. It seems as though the final outcome of what we see in theaters is the natural fruition of what actually unfolded during the filming of You Can See Everything. What made it fascinating for me is that the process of documenting Elizabeth Holmes becoming inseparable from the story itself. The co-director, Nathan Fielder, is not simply observing his subject; his own reactions, uncertainties, and interpersonal exchanges gradually become part of what the audience is invited to examine. In this way, the documentary turns its investigative lens back onto the investigator.
The documentary is laid out relatively simply, somehow cinematically, which surprisingly makes a 174-minute showing not feel like a 174-minute showing. Contrarily, I was surprised when it finally ended and couldn’t believe that time had passed so quickly. Of course, I think this is the outcome the directors were hoping for. Obviously, you know, if you’re going to make a three-hour movie, the biggest criticism will simply be the fact that it is a three-hour movie. I believe they somehow mitigated this in You Can See Everything by creating a story that is easy to get lost in, become involved with, and feel compelled by. Interestingly, the suspense is not necessarily generated by uncertainty about the outcome, because that is clearly laid out, but by uncertainty about how the story itself will unfold. You become invested in what the filmmakers will discover, what they will choose to reveal, and ultimately what they themselves will make of the experience.
The whole reason I wanted to see You Can See Everything was because of the buzz on social media. The clip of Elizabeth Holmes saying, “I’m talking to you as a human,” went viral for its uncomfortable impact. People are hypnotized by her appearance; certainly eerily uncanny, almost like a character from a cartoon with her red nose and rosy cheeks. However, it is how she engages in conversation that creates intrigue, with her “dead-eyed” look, famous in pop psychology for supposedly identifying psychopathy. Certainly, you’d think from the gloomy atmosphere of the documentary that it was about a psychopath. While I’ll agree that how Elizabeth Holmes engages with the world is weird and unusual, I saw an innocence in her that resembled how adult autism can present in women. So, while I won’t offer a diagnosis or psychoanalyze beyond what is explicitly shown, I think the claims that she is a psychopath based on what is shown are rather outlandish. The idea that psychopathy can be identified through a particular stare or unusual affect is itself an unfounded popular psychological assumption. Of course, my own interpretation is not immune to that same problem. Seeing characteristics that remind me of autism does not establish that she is autistic, any more than someone identifying a cold stare establishes psychopathy. Yet, this is precisely what makes the documentary psychologically fascinating: it encourages the audience to construct explanations for behaviors whose underlying motivations remain largely inaccessible to us.
Which brings me to the point I want to make about the interesting and unexpected chemistry between the co-director, Nathan, and Elizabeth. There is a moment where the director awkwardly says goodbye while Elizabeth awkwardly does the same, leading to a long pause before she ultimately walks away. There was a scene earlier in the movie where I felt this same strange connection between him and Elizabeth. Towards the end of the movie, someone later revealed to be a part of the documentary (whose identity is protected here for the sake of spoilers) questions him about whether he is secretly or unconsciously protecting Elizabeth in some way. Perhaps, she suggests, “You care about her?” He thinks about her questioning and believes he answers her to the best of his ability. To me, I felt this scene was a confirmation of what I had picked up on earlier in their chemistry. However, I don’t think it is romantic chemistry, and that is why I think he denies any connection. I believe he sees a lot of himself in her, he knows how to approach her, and it makes him suspicious of her authenticity. What I find particularly intriguing about this possibility is the psychological paradox of recognizing yourself in another person while simultaneously distrusting them. It is akin to watching a mime mirror your every action; when the mime is especially good, you find yourself becoming suspicious, enthralled by their sublime abilities. Perhaps the director’s familiarity with her mannerisms or interpersonal style creates a sense of identification that complicates his efforts to remain objective. Whether that familiarity comes from shared neurodevelopmental characteristics, personality, or simply an unusual interpersonal understanding is impossible to establish from the film alone. That said, the chemistry is perceptible, and the fact that someone else eventually questions his emotional investment suggests that the relationship itself has become part of the documentary’s story development. At this point, we are no longer exclusively examining Elizabeth Holmes; we are also examining the person attempting to examine her.
Moving along, I felt that the movie was deliciously dissociative and almost voyeuristic, and you will have to allow me to explain why. One of my favorite scenes of the film, towards the beginning, opened my eyes to what sort of experience it would be to watch the progression of the storytelling. There was a part where Elizabeth Holmes’ husband (Billy Evans) is being questioned about her treatment towards the beginning of the film; he is more so rambling about her, how she is being victimized, and then all of a sudden, there is a pause. He literally stops speaking and stares blankly into space, clearly appearing to dissociate. What I found fascinating was imagining the mental gymnastics he was actively going through, how his mind has compartmentalized the stressors, and the psychological mechanism of justifying her actions, which would require a huge mental load to reconcile. Of course, we don’t know what he was thinking before he finally snapped back and said something like, “But, yeah . . .” Nevertheless, the moment invites precisely that kind of psychological interpretation. It raises questions about cognitive dissonance, compartmentalization, and the emotional labor involved in maintaining a coherent narrative when confronted with contradictory realities. I’ll actually go so far as to say that it was brilliant, along with all the other awkwardness and long pauses, because it gives the audience room to imagine. There is something particularly effective about allowing a silence to remain uninterrupted rather than immediately filling it with dialog or explanation. It gives the impression that we are witnessing an internal psychological process, even though we cannot know what that process actually entails. Yet, there is another layer to this: the director’s decision to preserve these moments is itself an editorial choice. What feels like an unfiltered glimpse into someone’s psychology is also the product of deliberate filmmaking. The documentary therefore creates an interesting tension between observation and interpretation, between what is actually happening and what the audience believes is happening. Really, the whole documentary facilitates your imagination as you watch, not necessarily to see what is going to happen, but to discover where it will end.
There really is a lot to unpack with You Can See Everything (2026). I can see this being an academic case study on many psychological concepts and themes: codependency, the Dark Triad personality traits, family systems, forensic psychology, autism, etc. You can clearly see the dysfunction in how Elizabeth Holmes approaches and shapes the world around her, but you also see how normal it is for her. Her husband is her whole entourage, and she has a whole empire built not on love, but on sacrifice. There is something unsettling about a dysfunctional interpersonal system that appears perfectly ordinary to the people participating in it. What an outside observer interprets as manipulation, dependency, or sacrifice may be experienced very differently by those within the relationship, and that is made very clear by the end of the documentary. While the details of how she operates are often concerning and position her as the victim, I believe Elizabeth Holmes is happy right where she is: both in life and in her relationship. That apparent contentment does not negate the harm associated with her actions, nor does understanding her psychological presentation excuse the consequences of those actions.
I think it is possible to recognize the humanity of someone who has caused considerable harm without diminishing their accountability. Perhaps what I find most fascinating about You Can See Everything (2026) is that it reveals as much about our need to understand other people as it does about Elizabeth Holmes herself. We search for recognizable psychological patterns, interpret silences, assign motivations, and attempt to reconcile contradictions into something coherent. The director does this, the people surrounding Elizabeth do this, and, as I watched, I found myself doing the same thing. There is also an irony in criticizing the public’s tendency to impose psychological labels on Holmes while simultaneously trying to understand her through my own psychological framework. Perhaps that is the point! The documentary doesn’t merely present a person for us to judge; it exposes the interpretive process through which we arrive at those judgments. Somewhere between what the camera captures, what the filmmakers construct, and what the audience imagines, we are left wondering how much of Elizabeth Holmes we have actually come to understand, and, ironically, how much of her we really got to see.
