YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING (2026) Review
Documentary has always been a genre of contradiction. It claims to represent reality, but when so many decisions are being made about what to film, how to angle the camera, and what to cut, it becomes harder to say the final product is free of curation. This tension is also present in the ironic title of Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s newest project. Centered around Elizabeth Holmes in the days before and after she goes to prison for fraud, it’s a documentary that’s much less concerned with its premise than it is with the genre itself, constantly challenging the idea that we can ever see and understand everything.
Fielder and Oppenheim might seem like unlikely collaborators, but both share a skepticism toward the possibility of objectively portraying reality. The film opens with Holmes’ husband on the phone, suggesting that perhaps this documentary can help repair their public image after the nationwide scandal surrounding his wife made pariahs out of the young couple. From its opening scene, You Can See Everything understands that any attempt to portray reality inevitably shapes a narrative around it. I found the most interesting moments to be when Oppenheim’s camera lingered on Nathan Fielder as he interviewed Holmes and her husband, constantly paranoid that they were hiding something from him. This tension between obscurity and authenticity eventually leads the film down a path of Fielder’s signature absurdism, albeit with a darker twist, one that begins to distort the image itself.
Marking his fourth film with Lance Oppenheim, cinematographer David Bolen does some incredible work here. Pairing images shot through cracked doors or the bars of a baby’s crib with Ari Balouzian’s music produces a deep sense of unease by turning viewers into voyeurs, or revealing that we’ve always been. It looks and feels as if the camera itself is trying to pry some kind of truth from reality, only to be frustrated by the obscured silhouettes against hazy, backlit windows. The formal choices made by Bolen and his camera carry a lot of thematic weight and make the images resonate that much harder.
What’s also impressive is that Fielder and Co. manage not to turn this into some kind of Elizabeth Holmes apologia. Instead, she becomes the lens through which the documentary explores questions of performance, honesty, and how all of these things become even harder when there’s a profit motive. The film earns its three-hour runtime by exploring expansive themes while still feeling grounded in a specific time and place.
Everyone in this documentary is flawed, from the subjects to the directors to the audience. Fielder and Oppenheim locate these flaws in what the camera can uncover and conceal, be it in snippets of hushed gossip or something as subtle as a glance. You Can See Everything’s biggest strength is its recognition of how much remains beyond our view.
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