Nathan Fielder's Elizabeth Holmes documentary makes $15M opening weekend

Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim directed You Can See Everything, a documentary about Elizabeth Holmes that A24 released in theaters. The film made $15 million its opening weekend, a massive number for a documentary.

Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors in the Theranos scandal and got an 11-year prison sentence. The filmmakers spent 34 days with Holmes and her partner Billy Evans in the weeks before she reported to prison, following them around a beach cottage in Del Mar, California. Holmes and Evans have two young children.

The backstory

Holmes and Evans originally tried to pitch their own documentary about themselves to A24, but that deal fell apart. Fielder and Oppenheim ended up making the film instead, with A24 distributing it.

The film runs nearly three hours, a serious time investment even for people who followed the case closely.

What it covers

The documentary follows Holmes and Evans during those final 34 days of freedom. Reviews describe vastly different takes on what the film is actually saying and what viewers should get from it, which suggests Fielder brought his usual ambiguous style to the project.

If you followed the Theranos case when it broke or watched any of the earlier documentaries and dramatizations, this one promises a different angle: the woman herself in the days before prison, with her family, trying to control her story one last time.

The Radazoid take

We grew up on documentaries that knew when to end. A three-hour movie used to be Lawrence of Arabia or The Godfather Part II, not someone trying to rehab their image before heading to federal prison. Fielder's work is smart, but this feels like an endurance test unless you're already obsessed with Holmes and every detail of the Theranos disaster.

The $15 million opening says people are curious, but curiosity and actually sitting through three hours are two different things. If you've got the time and the interest, it's probably worth a watch when it hits streaming. If you don't, you're not missing much—the story's been told a dozen times already, and this version just adds her side of it right before the cell door closed. Wait for it at home where you can pause it.