I have paid Elizabeth Holmes only scant attention, but I know the basics of her story. After she founded Theranos at 19, the company grew to a multi-billion dollar valuation on the back of fraudulent claims about enhanced blood tests. After it eventually fell apart, Holmes was tried and convicted of fraud. Despite two bizarrely-timed pregnancies that seemed like disturbingly calculated attempts to garner sympathy, she is currently serving 11 years in prison.
I imagined that might be the last we heard of Holmes, and for some time, it was. Now, however, there’s a bizarre new documentary called “You Can See Everything”. It’s from comedian/surrealist Nathan Fielder, who for reasons beyond comprehension was granted full access to Holmes and her family just a month before she had to report to prison in 2023. After reading about its Sunday premier at the Telluride Film Festival, I watched the trailer, and boy was it unsettling.1
Frankly, it’s the creepiest thing I’ve seen in a long while, and not just because it looks like an outtake from the music video for “Black Hole Sun”. Holmes looks so uncanny that I honestly thought the whole thing might be A.I.-generated, but it’s her affect that’s truly horrifying. When she declares “I’m engaging with you as a human being”, the “sociopathic” is heavily implied.
“You Can See Everything” will be released next month, and it might just be the scariest movie of the Halloween season
Footnotes:
The trailer is archived here. ↩︎
