The global box office is bracing for Dunesday (Dune Part 3 and Avengers: Doomsday) on December 17, capping off what has already been its best year since before the pandemic. Much of the success has come from Hollywood studios, but this fall’s surprise blockbuster is a three-hour documentary produced by A24 and directed by Canadian actor and filmmaker Nathan Fielder (co-directed by Lance Oppenheim).
You Can See Everything has received rave reviews from critics and viewers alike. The praise is well-deserved as this extraordinary documentary is beautifully filmed, well- edited, well-structured and compelling enough to hold our attention for three hours. But while I enjoyed watching the film, I often felt uncomfortable and found myself wondering whether it was a documentary or an anti-documentary. By this I mean the film frequently breaks conventional documentary rules (e.g., Fielder is the star of his own documentary) while also making us question the reliability of all documentaries.
Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of a massive fraud involving her claims of having invented a device that could test blood with just one drop. You Can See Everything lets us into her home during the month before she begins her prison sentence and then takes a sudden turn as it shows us what happens during the first two years of the prison term. This turn involves a surprise guest (no spoilers here) and lends support to the theory that the entire film is more staged theatre (a psychological thriller) than documentary.
My discomfort arises from this sense of feeling manipulated by both the filmmakers and the subjects of the documentary (which includes Elizabeth’s husband, Billy Evans), who all seem to be exploiting each other, often in a cringe-worthy way. Nothing said by anyone feels reliable and there is no sense that any truth will be uncovered by watching this documentary (at least not without painstaking analysis).
One example is the way Holmes is presented. Holmes wants us to see her as an innocent mother living in a modest home, Evans wants us to see her as an innocent woman whose brain works differently, and Fielder structures all this to reveal pieces of Holmes in such a way as to maximize the narrative tension and keep viewers enthralled.
All of this raises ethical questions I can’t ignore: 1) All good documentaries are carefully structured, but is it right to stage everything in a way that so manipulates subjects (who are admittedly also staging everything) and viewers? 2) Is it right to draw so much attention to a convicted criminal who may want nothing more than to seek such attention?
I have many concerns with You Can See Everything, a “meta-documentary” that’s as much about the making of a documentary as about its subject. But I love its originality, its technical brilliance, the way it encourages us to view documentaries with care and, above all, the way it causes people to think about and discuss what they have just seen, something I wish viewers did more often.
Vic Thiessen has worked as a film critic and as a lecturer on film. He currently serves as the coordinator of the St. Andrews Film Society (a volunteer position).
