Warning: This article contains major spoilers for You Can See Everything, now playing in theaters.
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You → contain → theaters
Don’t read this until after you’ve seen the film.
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you → read → film
When Amanda Seyfried asked Nathan Fielder if he “missed” Elizabeth Holmes in You Can See Everything—the wildly popular A24 documentary, directed by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, featuring convicted tech CEO fraudster—it struck me as a surprisingly astute question.
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it → ask → question
The question conveniently encompassed the narrative question of the film: Had Fielder been manipulated by Holmes?
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Fielder → encompass → Holmes
Had Holmes successfully ensorcelled Fielder with her piercing, unrelenting eye contact, which she herself says is her preferred method of flirting?
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she → ensorcelle → flirting
Can the viewer trust the final hour of the film, which relies on reenactments from Fielder’s memory?
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which → trust → memory
It’s a compelling narrative.
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It → ’ → ?
It’s also, in my humble opinion, a scripted narrative.
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It → ’ → opinion
Yes, most documentaries come with a narrative that is deliberately shaped by the filmmaker.
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that → come → filmmaker
Anyone familiar with Fielder’s work knows that he has always walked a very careful balance between fact and fiction.
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he → know → fact
Is he really as awkward as the character he plays on Nathan For You, or is he chasing laughs?
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he → play → laughs
Did he really realize he was autistic while making The Rehearsal, or did he play up the possibility of a diagnosis for the sake of good TV?
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he → realize → TV
Fielder thrives in that uncertainty.
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Fielder → thrive → uncertainty
He isn’t lying, exactly.
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He → lie → ?
But he leads audiences down a particular path, leaves room for assumptions to be made, and never corrects those assumptions.
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assumptions → lead → assumptions
Fielder has found a way to channel his life-long interest in magic—the art of illusion—into an elevated version of reality TV.
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Fielder → find → TV
He’s become something of a master at it, in fact.
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He → become → fact
He’s maybe the best magician of our time.
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He → ’ → time
The magic trick he pulls off in You Can See Everything?
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You → pull → Everything
The implication that he caught feelings (whether romantic or platonic) for the disgraced CEO of Theranos.
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he → catch → Theranos
When Seyfried asks if he “misses” Holmes, Fielder’s gaze is locked on the beach outside the rented home in California, where he spent weeks living with Holmes and her boyfriend, Billy Evans.
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he → ask → Holmes
During that time, Holmes asked Fielder if he would jump in the ocean with her.
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he → ask → her
Fielder replies that he’s not sure, but probably not, because he’s afraid of cold water.
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he → reply → water
Viewers are meant to take Fielder’s response to Holmes as a clear “no.”
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Viewers → mean → no
But those familiar with the ways of celebrity documentaries and reality TV surely know that Fielder and Oppenheim could never resist the tantalizing opportunity to film their famous subject, and her famous interviewer, in bathing suits, nearly naked, swimming in the sea.
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Fielder → know → sea
That’s intimate, compelling, cinematic gold, and Holmes just presented it to them on a silver platter.
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Holmes → ’ → platter
If Fielder actually said no, I’d seriously doubt his and Oppenheim’s instincts as storytellers.
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I → say → storytellers
Of course they said yes.
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they → say → ?
The final scene of the movie—footage of Fielder and Holmes frolicking in the ocean—did not come as a surprise.
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scene → frolic → surprise
It’s genius, to be sure.
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It → ’ → ?
It’s a perfect button to the narrative that Fielder and Oppenheim spent two years constructing, told with the help of the Emmy-winning actress who played Holmes in the 2022 miniseries, The Dropout.
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who → ’ → miniseries
Which is why, though I don’t have proof, I believe the majority of the scenes with Fielder and Seyfried—including the ones where there are being themselves, not just reenacting Fielder’s memories—were, if not scripted, at least carefully planned.
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majority → have → memories
I felt this most strongly when Fielder and Seyfried sit in front of a roaring fire to debrief on his much-anticipated visit to Holmes in prison (where he was not allowed to film).
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he → feel → prison
Fielder asked Holmes if she knew that her boyfriend had made a deal with A24 to get a share of the film’s profit, while Holmes was out of the room.
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Holmes → ask → room
“I knew he was talking to you about it,” Fielder recalls Holmes saying.
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Holmes → know → it
But when Seyfried concludes that this must mean that Holmes let Evans do her dirty work for her so that she could maintain plausible deniability, Fielder pushes back.
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Fielder → conclude → deniability
He insists he must be remembering incorrectly, and that, actually, Holmes must have said, “I knew he was talking to you about something.”
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he → insist → something
It’s meant to be a telling moment for the audience; to imply that Fielder has become an unreliable narrator, that he’s editing his memories in an attempt to make Holmes look better than she is.
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she → mean → attempt
In case you didn’t pick up on that, Seyfried voices that exact sentiment moments later.
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Seyfried → pick → sentiment
It’s all punctuated the footage of Fielder and Holmes in the sea.
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It → punctuate → sea
…and 15 more, not listed.
The Aporia
