Walking out of You Can See Everything—the brilliant new documentary film from Lance Oppenheim, Nathan Fielder, and A24—my head was swimming with many questions. But most achingly, why is there a shot in this documentary of Billy Evans fully naked in the shower?
The shot factored into the documentary’s R rating, setting off a media storm about how on Earth this documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, the self-made billionaire and convicted fraudster behind Theranos, could possibly include graphic nudity.
On the surface, the shot seems completely gratuitous and disconnected from anything. For what seems to be a full minute, we watch as Billy Evans, Holmes’ partner, brushes his teeth in the shower. His body is fully in view. No explanation is given in the documentary for its inclusion.
But after turning it over in my mind a while, it ultimately serves as the perfect metaphor for the film. Evans and Holmes reached out to A24 and Fielder about making the documentary, a reversal of the typical journey where a filmmaker interested in documenting a subject is the one probing for access.
Holmes and Evans are adamant throughout the film that they want to show people Holmes has nothing to hide. They believe, they say, that this documentary can show the world Elizabeth Holmes as she truly is after years of her image being distorted through media like Hulu’s The Dropout.
Evans fully nude in the shower stretches the thesis of the film to its limits: this couple is willing to let the documentarians see everything. Billy naked in the shower is symbolic of just how nakedly these two people are approaching the film.
And yet, watching the film unfold, you feel you are only getting further from knowing who Elizabeth really is. And that’s where the film turns its title on its head: despite seeing every inch of Billy’s skin, what are we to make of what’s going on beneath that surface?
This is a film all about surfaces, and how accurately the images we project of ourselves are to our true inner selves, and whether we can ever, truly, see everything.
It benefits greatly from Oppenheim’s work behind the camera, staging a documentary that truly feels cinematic in nature.
The magic of the film, of course, comes from the pairing of Holmes and Fielder, both known for blurring the lines between performance and identity, albeit one for comedy and one for major fraud.
But that magic is really only present for the first hour of the film as the filmmakers race against the hard deadline of Holmes’ then-upcoming prison sentence. But it is what comes next where the documentary truly elevates and transcends itself, thanks in part to the appearance of some surprise guests who add rich layers to the ongoing themes.
But there is only so much that can be said in a non-spoiler review of this film, which you should see immediately, hopefully in a theater with many other people. You must see everything.
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